2024-02-12 19:30:40
The Chairman of the American Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, declared in an interview for the show “60 Minutes”, on CBS on February 4, 2024: “We think the American economy is doing well. We think inflation is coming back down. We just want to be a little more confident and wait for it to drop and stabilize at +2%. [avant de baisser les taux] ».
The challenge of controlling inflation
However, although American inflation has calmed significantly over the last 18-24 months, it is still high at +3.4%. We are therefore far from the 2% objective. Jerome Powell adds that it is unlikely that the Federal Open Market Committee, the central decision-making body on rates, will have acquired the level of confidence necessary to lower them by the next vote scheduled in March 2024, less than seven short weeks.
In other words, we will therefore have to wait at best until the next vote in May 2024 to hope for a decision in favor of reducing rates.
Inflation in Florida
Florida is also the American state with the highest inflation, almost twice as high as the rest of the United States: the Miami – Fort Lauderdale – West Palm Beach agglomeration had a CPI (Consumer Price Index or Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, all items) of +7.7% annual average inflation between 2022 and 2023; that of Tampa-St Petersburg-Clearwater had a CPI of +6.8%.
Note that these inflation rates were decreasing at the end of 2023 (+5.7% for Miami and +5.2% for Tampa), figures provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. ).
A healthy Florida economy
“Despite high inflation, Florida’s economy is strong,” said Sean Snaith, director of the Economic Forecasting Institute at UCF, the University of Central Florida, interviewed by Teghan Simonton for the Tampa Bay Times in an article from December 19, 2023. This is due to the increase in population which causes inflation on the one hand, but which on the other hand injects a lot of money into Florida’s economic circuits. Thanks to it, Florida is well equipped to withstand a potential economic recession and should be able to absorb any potential shocks.
Moreover, the unemployment rate of 3% is very low in Florida, lower than the national average of 3.7% and than California with 5.1%. According to FloridaJobs.com, 240,600 jobs were created in Florida between December 2022 and December 2023.
30-year interest rates in 2024
As of February 1, 2024, the stable rate for one month was 6.63% according to Freddie Mac (nickname given to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation). As Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist of the National Association of Realtors, points out, “the national budget deficit remains high and inflation indicators are above comfortable norms. For these reasons, rates will remain in a range between 6% and 7% for most of 2024.”
For the Mortgage Bankers Association, rates will end 2024 at around 6.1% and it will be necessary to wait until the end of 2025 at best for them to drop to 5.5%.
The horizon is therefore distant before a return to the very low rates of 2021, if that is even possible one day.
1707777446
#Stability #interest #rates #coming #months