Oil prices, mortgage rates and jobs Friday preview

Name: Oil prices, mortgage rates and jobs Friday preview
Uploaded: 2026-09-03T08:00:00+00:00
Duration: 21 min 27 s
Channel: HousingWire

00:10Welcome, everyone. I'm joined today by lead analyst Logan Motoshami to talk about oil prices

00:16and jobs data and how both of those are affecting mortgage rates right now. We have a lot to talk

00:21about, but first here are the top five trending articles on housingwire.com. At the top of that

00:27list is Nexa Lending launches new model touts 100% revenue split for LOs, followed by House

00:34Republicans outlined plan to overhaul CFPB. Then we have mortgage rates jump after Warsh's

00:41Jackson Hole remarks and Jay Bray on how Rocket plans to win brokers in a tough market. Finally,

00:48we have our announcement on the 2026 housingwire vanguards. These are the goats of the housing

00:53industry. That's real estate, mortgage, title, appraisal, home building. Definitely check

00:57that out. Okay, let's dive in. Logan, welcome back to the podcast. It is wonderful to be here. Both

01:04you and I are back home, no longer in Michigan. I had a very, very fun event at North Point

01:10Bank, but

01:12wow, what a week. It's went, I mean, Jobs Week has gone to this, you know, full special 24 episode

01:20Jack Bauer. I mean, they brought everyone. It's like the survival reunion of 24 all in one,

01:27one week. I feel like so much has changed since the last time we talked. It's only been two days,

01:32but especially just the escalation in the Iran conflict, which you've pointed to as being,

01:37you know, very relevant right now. And then what happened since. So let's start there because I know

01:42we have a lot I want to get to, but that escalation, what has that done to oil prices? What

01:47is that doing

01:47the 10 year yield? It's done nothing. It's kind of crazy to think about this, but

01:55for those that might not know, we have a tanker to tanker policy now. And for me personally,

02:01I don't like the oil chart because it's broken that downtrend. And now we have, well, if Iran shoots

02:09at any tankers that hits, we're going to shoot, you know, at Iranian tankers. And there's only so many

02:15Iranian tankers they have. And once something is damaged, it's not like they can go to the repair

02:22shop anytime soon to start fixing it. So we initially saw oil prices go up and the 10 year

02:30yield go up. By the way, if I had told anyone in America that the 10 year yield would be

02:36at,

02:36you know, 4.82% at one point, the Fed is talking about multiple rate hikes. Inflation is above target.

02:43We're six months into a conflict and mortgage rates are still under 7%. How many would have

02:50taken that bet? You know, this is why we wrote that article on July 8th, because, you know, if

02:56Wait, what was the article?

02:58Just about, you know, why is it hard to get mortgage rates above 7% this year? And so much

03:02of that is spreads. And so much of my economic work is spreads and 10 year yield channels and everything

03:07that you really need, like this conflict to go off. So if you actually look at oil and the 10

03:12year

03:12yield, that correlation chart is that is that multi year highs right now. So the 10 year yield is

03:18really moving on for oil prices. But this morning, it was mild. I mean, the 10 year was down a

03:25few

03:26basis points early on oil prices were flatted up. So, so it's a little bit more tricky now. But

03:33even today, yeah, mortgage rates being under 7% still. And why is this important is purchase

03:40application data came out today, positive week to week, flat year over year with harder comps.

03:48Now the next six weeks going out, purchase application day is going to have real difficult

03:54comps because that's when mortgage rates really started heading lower and the forward looking demand

03:57got better. And we had a nine month high in sales in December. So keep that in mind when you're

04:02looking at the year over year data, but I think for apps to have a positive week to week and

04:07being

04:07flat and that flat level, if you look at the scale data, it's roughly at a four year high for

04:13the

04:13calendar week with mortgage rates up here. I mean, housing demand slows down. Like we always talk about

04:20when rates get above 6.64, but it's not having any material move lower. And that's been the theme of

04:26our tracker articles in the last few weeks. And then here's purchase application data. Because to me,

04:31when purchase application data is really getting hit, you're down double digits easily. And it's

04:38really hard to get sales to crash from these levels. And every year that goes by, that home price

04:44growth is slowed down and wages outpriced home prices. And now the household gets for housing gets

04:50a little bit better base. But if rates had just stayed near 6% the whole year, we'd have sales

04:57would

04:57be positive year to date. There'd be less angst around housing, but the conflict changed a lot

05:04of things now. And that oil, that 10 year yield oil chart, that correlation chart really tells the

05:09story now what's going on in the last few weeks. So, you know, you wrote the article this week,

05:15how long can mortgage rates stay under 7%? And, you know, the escalation in Iran was one of the

05:21things you pointed to. So are even you surprised that we're not that we're not above seven at this

05:26bar at seven? So when we wrote that article this week, we said three things are in play this week.

05:32Number one, jobs. So job openings wasn't great, wasn't bad. But it's still the same story. So you

05:39don't have a reacceleration of the labor market. The hires and fires are still very low. The ADP report

05:48came in as a miss of estimates is a much lower number too. It was only estimating 47,000 and

05:55it came in at 37,000. So the labor data isn't exploding higher so far. So we have jobs Friday

06:01coming up. Of course, jobless claims will come out this morning when this podcast comes up,

06:05but jobs Friday will be key. Canada is telling America to get serious and stop doing memes.

06:10You know, so there isn't any more escalation. There's a lot of back and forth talk between Canada

06:15and America right now. So nothing has gotten worse that, but oil prices, my concern is this

06:22diesel prices are back to a high and the oil chart does not look good. And if you want to

06:28know what

06:28take the top of the oil price this year, draw a line all the way down. And then you could

06:33realize

06:34there, we have a potential for this to go up higher, but for now, for now we're really close

06:41to 7%, but boy, a lot, a lot has happened. And the term premium for the 10 year yield is

06:46much higher.

06:47And a lot of people are making comments that, you know, just the, the escalation of this conflict

06:52is, is really pushing yields higher more than it probably should. And it's, it's a fascinating week

06:58so far. It's been a fascinating last few weeks, but this week we still have a few days left

07:03and jobs, right. It can be, can, can, can be a party when that comes.

07:08Oh man. Okay. Well, why don't we get into, do you want to talk more about purchase apps or,

07:13or do you want to get into the jobs?

07:14I mean, just with purchase apps, just kind of say it's, it's kind of safe things. Not

07:18much is going on. And whatever things we've talked about, I don't know how many people in America can

07:23talk about housing. If there's not any big velocity move up or down, you know, and I don't know how

07:31many

07:31people actually have data for this. Now, for those of you that read the tracker, you guys know it

07:35all, man. We, we, we put the whole, uh, enchilada of housing data in there. So it's not a shock,

07:41but if you're sitting there waiting for like the pending home sales or the existing home sales,

07:45and you don't see the forward looking data, the weekly trackers out there, it's just really not

07:49much. I was, again, I was happy to see new listings data stay, stay, uh, uh, uh, it's so funny.

07:55We have some rookie guy that kept on saying that, uh, new listings data is not a five year high

08:00for

08:01the calendar week. And that's, that's, I was like, no, no, that's not, that's not what it's

08:06saying. You should maybe, you should call it a night, get an Uber, go home, sleep it off, man.

08:12It's not your thing. Uh, uh, so far a very, very healthy year on the new listings data. Cause you

08:18remember most of these sellers are buyers, uh, uh, and you want to see new listings data, try to get

08:25back to normal. And, uh, we had a few, we had a few weeks this year that were over 80

08:30,000,

08:31which was kind of the low end of what normal was. So positive on that front. I mean, just think

08:35about

08:35everything else that's going on in the world. I mean, we had growth, that growth has slowed down

08:41to negative and flat and some of these data lines, but we're handling it as best as we can considering

08:47the dynamics that are out there. I also wanted to note that on the purchase apps, uh, the NBA,

08:53the NBA noted that, uh, the arm loans are now at 8% share of the total loans, but we

08:59all know we

09:00don't have to be afraid of those arm loans. These are not the bad arm loans of the 2008,

09:05you know, that led to 2008. These are like, you have to, you have to be qualified for the,

09:09um, the, the recast rate you have to, I mean, these are not the same boogeyman, right?

09:15By the way, all those sorry ass scrubs. And I mean, I'm saying sorry, ass scrubs, a bunch of

09:21rookie ball men and women out there saying the 2019 arms are adjusting in 2025. And we're going

09:29to have a surge of inventory. You guys are all terrible. All of you, all of you on the internet,

09:34every YouTube, Tik TOK, all you are all trash. It is so bad out there that I, Sarah, if before

09:42I die,

09:43I just want to line all these sucker scrubs up in front of everybody in America and just highlight

09:48how terrible these people are. And there's some fascination with the arms. Like they think it's

09:53the two 28, three 27, a hundred percent finance too. I'm like, we are going to get people to read

10:00books, Sarah Wheeler. We are going to educate this, this sorry scrub YouTube Tik TOK. It's a, I mean,

10:07it is just, it's not the same things. Uh, and the, you're never going to see the popularity of arms.

10:13Like they were running at 33 to 35% during the housing because the qualifications were easy.

10:19Right. Uh, but now it's, it's so much different. So naturally, if you can get something near six

10:25on a five or a seven, you know, uh, and you have to qualify for the recast rate and then

10:30you,

10:30your wages go up. There's, there's not like that kind of risk. And that's why we did not see the

10:35surge of inventory that was supposed to happen in 2025 and 2026, because all these 2019 arms were coming to

10:42you. It's embarrassing. These people are embarrassing to the country. God, they need to

10:50have mercy. Come on now, people get a life, get a hobby, do something else. But this is not your

10:57thing.

10:58I think many of them know that, but they do get a lot of clicks from it. So that's why

11:03we are the

11:03you live only once Wheeler, you live only once. You got to look at your kids and grandkids and go,

11:09you know, this is who your father and your mother, your grandfather and your grandmother was

11:14a sorry, adult scrub, doom porn posting in America as an American citizen. If you're Russian or Chinese

11:20or Iranian and you're doing disinformation campaigns, I get it, but this is just trash.

11:25This is so uneducated trash. We got to highlight when I'm done and I write my books, I got everyone's

11:31name and face. We are going to light these people up piece by piece. Do you hear me Wheeler?

11:36Oh, I hear you. I hear you. I want to edit that book. That's going to be a good book.

11:40OK, let's talk about jobs, because like you said, we got ADP. We still have some more coming out.

11:47You've identified jobs as one of the big things that are going to move rates. One of the few

11:51things that can move rates right now, because it's what the Fed's paying attention to. And of course,

11:55we have their meeting coming up. So tell me what you think.

11:59So I think as a country, we all need to have a discussion with everyone is that is the US

12:06job

12:07growth boom over with, because if we're using labor force growth as a reason for low job numbers,

12:13and that's not getting better as the baby boomers are leaving and dying off and we have less

12:20immigration. So at some point as a country, we have to say, OK, listen, our job boom is over and

12:26the future of growth has to come through productivity, not labor force growth. Hopefully

12:31we have that conversation soon, because the Federal Reserve did a really good job of telling people

12:36that we don't care if the job growth is low. And when you have very, very low break evens,

12:41you could have a few months be negative and the unemployment rate not really move much.

12:45And that's kind of what we saw this year. We had a rebound in jobs. And of course,

12:52for me, it's a little bit different. This is my second trade war. The first trade war,

12:58the labor market wasn't working as properly because nobody knows what's going on. Well,

13:01homie did not do like strawberry shortcake or baby Godzilla tariffs. He did Godzilla tariffs,

13:08man. He did space Godzilla tariffs. And then all hell broke. We shut down the government. There was

13:13all these things. And then the labor data got weaker. Manufacturing wasn't growing. Residential

13:17construction wasn't really growing. So we had some negative reports. And then the second year

13:22of a trade war, I remember things got a little bit better because it's less chaotic. So we had

13:26that rebound. But my caution was, don't look at this as reacceleration. Just look at the average

13:30flow of where we are right now. And ADP kind of showed that too. So even if the job numbers

13:40was a

13:40miss, I don't know if that's going to move the needle for the Hawks. I think even if you lost

13:46200,000

13:47jobs, Beth Hammock and Lori Logan and Neil Kashkari and Austin Goolsby, the smirk of Austin Goolsby will

13:52all say we need to raise race still. But the question is, will a negative number, boy, get

14:00the last four Fed people that need to vote? I think that's the key. Wage growth was really

14:07lower in the last report. That has the potential to bounce back up. But it's hard for some of these

14:14Fed members to call for a rate hype on an oil shock, on a conflict, and have back-to-back

14:20negative reports if wage growth is still decelerating because it doesn't show like you're

14:27having a tight labor market. So it'll be a very interesting Friday. But again, the 10-year

14:32yield is really moving off oil prices. And we have had a lot of drama. Diesel prices are up. Oil

14:38prices

14:39are up. So the jobs date is important for the September, but you really have to read the

14:45internals out here. If you had a very, very low jobs print and the unemployment rate rose

14:52two basis points as more people are looking for work, that's something that could keep the Fed

14:57back. But if you have another negative 10,000 jobs, but the unemployment rate is at 4% and wage

15:04growth is flat, I don't know if that moves the needle for the hawks. And I don't know,

15:10maybe some of the Fed governors, two of them maybe want to raise rates still in September. But

15:16it's tricky. It's a very tricky labor report. We already got two of the four. Jobless claims are

15:22still going to be low no matter what. And we'll just kind of take it up there. So dissecting that

15:27jobs Friday report will be very key. You know, you always look at like which sectors are growing.

15:33You're looking at the breadth of the labor market. One of the things we had acceleration job,

15:39you know, the hiring for the World Cup. We had that and then that went out of the data. And

15:44then,

15:44you know, just seasonally, we had like education or schools hiring, some government hiring. What do

15:51you usually look at for August data? I mean, to me, there's more breadth in the jobs data this year

15:59than last year. And that's what the Fed hawks are holding their hat on. Manufacturing jobs are starting

16:04to pick up. Residential construction workers are not, but the data centers are really, you know, kicking

16:12into gear. So where last year, if it wasn't for two sectors, we would have lost 834,000 jobs, something

16:21like that. And those were healthcare and healthcare and social services. But this year, you got a

16:28little bit more breadth. And that's what some of the Fed hawks hold. You know, you don't have two

16:32sectors. And the World Cup thing has run itself off, you know, where you got job growth and job

16:38decline. So you get a little bit more clear data out there. Educational school things, especially some

16:45states where, you know, less attendees are coming in, you know, that's a local hit. That's a small

16:52smidget of everything. That's not a big thing in the general economy. So private sector hiring and

16:59where wage growth is in that is going to be key. It's a really fascinating year, Sarah. I mean,

17:06if you are an absolute dorky nerd, you got to love this. There's so many things that, you know,

17:12you really have to be very meticulous in trying to explain. But man, it's wild. I mean, 2026 is a

17:22wild year. And the labor data, you know, again, a lot of this is us. We're bringing some of this

17:31drama

17:31into it. My concern is still that for the real estate and mortgage industry, the 10-year yield

17:39is really weighing itself off oil prices and diesel prices just really shot right back up higher. So

17:45that is a concern. So let me ask you this, because obviously, if we were to be coming with some

17:52sort

17:52of force that would end this conflict, that would be tremendous, right? You've said like, hey, we just

17:57need to get this conflict ended. If you do it by blowing up oil tankers, what does that do to

18:02oil

18:03prices? Like, is that the right way to do that? Or does that have longer lasting consequences? Or is

18:08like, oh, we've got plenty of tankers somewhere. It's really the refineries and all of that.

18:12You know, you and I had this discussion privately that, you know, if it was me, like my issue with

18:19Trump is if you're telling Iran that you're crying about lower mortgage rates, and then you're doing

18:25a conflict that you can't deal out, you're just feeding them a reason to keep this going. But if

18:31you're Iran, and now you have to deal with your tankers being blown up, you know, it's not like

18:39you got 50,000 tankers out there. Okay. So it becomes problematic for their, their currency is

18:46already in trouble. And you can't really repair those things right now. It's what a lot of people

18:51say, well, it doesn't matter if you blow up the tankers, because the blockade is, yeah, it does matter.

18:55Because that means it takes time, it takes money to rebuild those things. And you have to rebuild

19:01them somewhere where, you know, you can't get missiled either. So it becomes a little bit more,

19:06so if you're trying to force a game, an end game, whatever this is, if you're trying to force something,

19:13that might be a tactic to go to. But again, it's, you're, we're changing the parameters every two

19:22weeks here. We went from all, we're just going to do a economic D-Day sanctions and that's it.

19:26We'll just force it. And then like 48 hours later, we're, we're throwing missiles everywhere

19:30and we're blowing up tankers. So it just doesn't seem like there's a, there's a, a, a, a, a general

19:37plan and letting that plan stick and wait. I mean, the Romans in the old days, they just basically

19:42will force you in your castle and build camps around you and wait three years until all your food is

19:48out, you know, uh, uh, and eventually you have to give in. So if you're going to make the commitment,

19:54you know, you're going to have to, uh, uh, uh, press the pain button a little bit more, but

19:59it's midterms. I mean, it's, that's, that's, that's why we've always said it's a little bit

20:04tricky with two year political cycles and, uh, um, it's September. So I, I, I just, I just don't like

20:11how that oil chart looks and diesel's already come back to where it was early in the year. And those

20:16two things are what the federal reserve has put their negative or their hawkish take on.

20:23Uh, uh, so, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll see how this goes, but I mean, even if the conflict gets over,

20:28I mean, you just probably go back down to like four 60, some more there, you know, uh, the,

20:33the oil bond correlation that it's not like the federal reserve is going to give the a okay. I mean,

20:39when oil prices were down to 68 home girl, Beth hammock was saying, Oh, this is bad. This could be

20:45inflationary. People might have more money to spend now. So, so you, you, there, there has to

20:49be some work done to lose that hawkish biasness out there. No, right. It's like sort of, you know,

20:56you can't win. Uh, okay. You know, we've, we've got a war that's bad oils up oils down. Then that

21:01means people are going to spend. So it's like, you got to kind of pick a side there. Logan, thank

21:06you

21:07so much. Um, we will talk again soon. Appreciate you as always. Yeah, we got two more days left. So

21:12let's

21:13see if we can get through this week. Let's see. Thank you.

Oil prices, mortgage rates and jobs Friday preview

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