The latest Federal Reserve meeting (July 26th) increased the interest rate another 25 basis points to 5.375%. We have another three upcoming meetings (September 20th, November 1st, and December 13th) left in 2023.
The current focus is now on fall corporate financial reports and the impact of existing debt payments on corporate profits to see if additional interest rate hikes are needed. GDP numbers out by July 27th showed an economy that is growing and consumers who are still spending (particularly in services rather than material goods) indicating that we are not in a recession. The CORE inflation measure (which strips out food and energy) used by the Federal Reserve in their evaluation actually dropped from 4.6 to 4.1% from May to June.
The new increase resulted in mortgage rates that though high (around 7%), compared to recent extremely low mortgage rates, are not historically the highest. It may be surprising to see that in areas with low housing supply (most people don’t want to sell a house with a mortgage below 3%) we are expecting house prices to actually increase 5%-10%. In areas with excess supply the story is different, and prices are dropping in the short-term. Similarly, the increased mortgage rates and abundant supply appear to be negatively impacting the commercial property market.
What does all this mean? Though your home and real estate may be impacted by this rate increase, we are not seeing a similar impact on your portfolio. If you feel strongly that commercial real estate will recover significantly this would be a time to invest in commercial REITs. Though we see promise in undervalued commercial real estate, we have more confidence that residential (not commercial) will outperform in the long-term despite additional potential interest rate increases.
Edi Alvarez, CFP®
BS, BEd, MS