There’s a lot going on, and not only jawboning about a potential Fed rate increase next week. We have the smoke drifting down from Canada and slowing or stopping flights in the Northeast. The Wall Street Journal reports that China and Cuba have signed an agreement for a Chinese eavesdropping station in Cuba. For rate watchers, Trepp has come out with a report showing interest rates sensitivity with commercial loans, cousin to our residential loans and their sensitivity to refinancing given interest rates. Yes, interest rates impact everything to do with borrowing and lending. New data revealed real estate investors purchased 48.6% fewer homes in Q1 of 2023 than they did a year earlier, according to the latest market report from Redfin. That’s the largest annual decline on record and outpaced the 41 percent drop in overall home purchases in the 40 major metros analyzed. Investor purchases fell 16 percent on a quarter-over-quarter basis, comparable with the 15 percent quarterly drop in overall home purchases. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is sponsored by Built Technologies. Join Built Technologies on June 20th at 12 PM CST for an exclusive webinar that will dive into proactive portfolio monitoring as Built’s experts share best practices for achieving greater visibility into your construction portfolio. Today’s has an interview with Ally Home’s Glenn Brunker on what sort of housing market correction we should expect to see and how originators are winning business.)