Listings hit a four-year high as pending sales stall

Redfin's four-week read through August 30 is the cleanest picture of the purchase market published this week, and it points one direction. New listings hit 383,795 seasonally adjusted, up 2.1% on the week and 8% on the year — the highest level since August 2022. Active inventory is 1,511,313, up 2.4% year over year. Pending sales went the other way: down 2.5% from a year ago and the lowest level since February. Days on market held at 45, and the share of listings taking a price cut rose to 20.9% from 20.2%. Supply is arriving faster than demand is absorbing it, which is exactly the condition that hands your buyer negotiating room without requiring the rate to move at all.

Yesterday's brief covered the reversal: soft ISM and JOLTS had bonds rallying Monday morning until crude spiked, and the ten-year finished September 1 at 4.79%, its highest close since January 2025. Wednesday was quieter — Mortgage News Daily called it a relatively drama-free session, noting yields touched their highest intraday levels in well over a year but did not close much above the prior day. The other item still standing from yesterday is the House Financial Services CFPB package introduced Tuesday, which its sponsors have said is not expected to advance in this Congress. Nothing on your compliance calendar changes because of it.

The link between the supply data and the rate board is the ARM share. MBA's weekly survey has applications up 0.8% with the adjustable share at 8%, a five-week high, and Bankrate's 5/1 ARM prints 6.51% against 6.80% on the 30-year fixed — 29 basis points of separation. When inventory is the best it has been in four years and the fixed rate sits at the top of its month-long range, some share of buyers will reach for the structure that makes the payment work rather than wait for the rate to come to them. That is a conversation to have on purpose, with the reset math on the table, not one to let a borrower stumble into on a rate table.

On rates themselves: Bankrate's 30-year survey reads 6.80% this morning, up five basis points from yesterday's 6.75%, sitting at the top of its 30-day band of 6.67%-6.80% and just under the 90-day high of 6.82% set July 28. Over a full month the level is flat — 6.80% today, 6.80% on August 4 — so the honest framing for a borrower is that rates have gone sideways at the high end of the range, not that they are coming down. Freddie Mac's weekly survey, which lags, last printed 6.66% on August 27. The government-versus-conventional gap is where the payment lives: Bankrate has FHA at 6.47% and VA at 6.50% against 6.80% conventional, roughly 33 basis points, or about $87 a month on a $400,000 loan. Jumbo is 6.88%, only eight basis points over conventional. The calendar is heavy from here — the employment report lands Friday, September 4, the CPI window opens September 10, and the FOMC meets September 15-16, a meeting that publishes a Summary of Economic Projections, so the dot plot is in play. A borrower already at the top of a month-long range has limited upside from floating through a payroll print.

Regulatory and industry notes. HUD's Office of Inspector General has joined the Department of Justice's National Fraud Detection Center, a prosecutor-led multi-agency effort whose partners include the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, FinCEN, Treasury, and the inspectors general of a dozen departments; HUD OIG's stated purpose is fraud schemes hitting federal housing programs, which means FHA files. Separately, the OCC, Federal Reserve, FDIC, FinCEN, and NCUA issued a joint statement on September 2 clarifying that SAR confidentiality does not bar an institution from discussing the underlying facts, transactions, and documents a report is based on with a customer — only the existence of the report itself. Two items in one week pushing the same direction: more coordinated detection on one side, clearer rules for what a BSA team may say on the other. In Washington State, the Compass-NWMLS settlement begins taking effect September 4 and creates a new "First Look" status that HousingWire argues reaches further than the "Coming Soon" question it was framed around. On the corporate side, eXp is winding down Success Lending, its joint venture with Kind Lending, and targeting a launch with Newrez. Angel Oak raised $228.2 million against mostly non-QM collateral, with most A-1 tranches expected to pay 5.83% — a useful reference for anyone pricing bank-statement or DSCR paper this month. And in Florida, nearly 20 insurers have entered or reentered the state since the 2022 and 2023 reforms, which is finally showing up as easier quoting and fewer insurance-driven closing delays.