When mortgage rates hit 7% in the fall, Austin-based mortgage broker Aaron Kovac was a little spooked.
As the housing market slump drags on, fear has taken over. “This is my first time going through a decline in the real-estate market,” Kovac said, “2022 has been the scariest year of my adult and professional life.” And the stress from the dip in clients is weighing on his personal finances, and mental health, Kovac said: “All that uncertainty, wondering, where is my next paycheck going to come from? Where am I going to find that next buyer?”
Given the drop in mortgage originations, the sector needs to shed roughly between a quarter to a third of jobs to “right-size the whole industry,” Mike Frantantoni, the Mortgage Bankers Association in industry group’s chief economist, told MarketWatch earlier this year. He also wrote an article about the numbers in August.
While these borrowers had different credit scores, amounts down for payment and such, hence had different rates quoted to them, the vast difference between the two was something out of Kovac’s hands. Aside from the mortgage on his current home, he also is paying off about $44,000 in student loan debt.
By the time a client gets pre-qualified for a mortgage, looks for a house, and comes back to the lender a couple of weeks later, rates would have gone up, and he’d have to break the news to them.
real estate... not for the squimish....