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Is there a recession looming on the horizon? Will prices and mortgage costs improve? Why is obtaining home insurance rapidly becoming a deal breaker? What’s happening in the foreclosure and investment markets?
Whether you’re a brand new agent or a 40-year veteran, market intelligence expert Rick Sharga has the answers you need to cope with what’s ahead as we approach the spring selling market.
Rick Sharga, the CEO of Market Intelligence Company CJ Patrick, is a long-time real estate veteran with deep experience in the data and foreclosure side of the business. I recently sat down with Sharga for his take on the trends and data you need to know to be better prepared as you confront the challenges ahead this spring.
Is a recession ahead?
Is there a recession ahead? Sharga said if you look back over the last eight recessions, there’s one specific factor they all had in common: a “yield curve inversion.”
According to Investopedia, “A yield curve inversion occurs when short-term debt instruments have higher yields than long-term instruments with the same credit risk profile. The inverted curve has been a reliable indicator of a recession.”
In term of Sharga’s take on this issue, “The Federal Reserve has raised the Fed Funds Rate 12 times now, to try and get inflation under control,” he said.
“Eleven of those 12 times, we’ve seen them overcorrect and cause a recession. This feels a whole lot like an overcorrection.”
A second factor that could play into a recession is the Federal Reserve’s decision on Jan. 31, 2024, to keep its current benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5.4 percent. This means the earliest we would…