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Marketing Pulse May 10

Inventory tightens against demand — pivot client content from rates to supply

Yesterday's data shifted the borrower-wait calculus: 'rates will come down' meets '1.49% inventory growth.' The marketing edge is education on the supply side, not new rate hooks.

Sunday, May 10, 2026 30Y 6.54%15Y 5.85%5/1 ARM 6.32%

The biggest marketing story this weekend isn't on the rate side — it's the inventory data. HousingWire's Altos numbers show pending home sales rose 6.7% YoY (79,220 vs 74,212 a year ago) while inventory growth slowed to 1.49% YoY, edging toward outright contraction. Layer on Jimmy Burgess's Inman piece on the "3 market myths holding your clients back" (published Sunday) and the framing converged across multiple outlets: the borrower narrative needs updating. LOs who keep running rate-focused content this week miss the actual story. The borrower-side trade-off has shifted — waiting for rates to drop now competes with inventory disappearing, and the inventory bet is the worse one to make right now.

The 30Y held 6.45% on Bankrate through the weekend (Mortgage Daily prints 6.33% on broader methodology, Altos showed 6.42%) — the 90-day range is 5.98%–6.47%, with current sitting in the upper third. The math for refi cohorts hasn't shifted materially from last week: 2023 vintage at 7.25%+ saves about $210/mo on a $400K loan; the 2024 vintage at 6.75–7.24% saves $90–150. What HAS changed is the purchase-side narrative — "wait for rates" is now a less defensible position than it was seven days ago because the supply-side math is moving against waiters faster than the rate math is moving for them.

This week's high-leverage move is content that reframes the wait. Three concrete formats. First, a one-image social post: graph the 1.49% inventory-growth trend against the 6.45% rate trend, caption "the wait math just changed on both sides" — works on IG, LinkedIn, and as a text image to past quotes. Second, a short educational email titled something like "3 things changing about your home search you might not have heard" — frames the inventory + Fed FSR + demand data, ends with "ready to refresh your quote?" Third, borrow Burgess's "myth-busting" frame for video — a 60-second piece on "what won't happen this spring" addressing the three most common borrower wait-rationalizations. AI tools from last week's brief (HubSpot smart content, Mailchimp behavioral) can route any of these to the right segment automatically; what matters is the SHIFT in content from rates to supply.

Do this today

take Jimmy Burgess's "3 market myths holding your clients back" article from Inman (published Sunday), pull the three myths into a 60-second video script you can record on your way to coffee tomorrow morning, and post by 9 AM Monday. The myth-busting frame is currently the highest-conversion content format for purchase-fence borrowers because it gives them a reason to stop waiting that isn't "rates dropped" — and that's the only narrative they haven't already heard fifty times this spring.

Borrower segments to act on today

Active purchase loans — borrowers who need the inventory pivot

Purchase loans in-flight today are the cohort most exposed to inventory tightening — if they're still shopping or under contract on a 60-day window, the 1.49% YoY inventory growth (down from ~5% earlier in the spring) materially shifts their leverage. They need the supply-side conversation this week, not another rate update.

active loans · purchases
2023 vintage refi candidates at 7.25%+ (carry-over)

Unchanged from last week — these borrowers locked at peak-rate quotes and today's 6.45% is roughly 80+ bps below their note rate (~$210/mo on a $400K loan). Savings math still works at break-even inside 18 months. Keep the cohort warm even if the marketing pivot focuses on purchase content this week.

closed loans · rate ≥7.25%

Today’s content angles

Short-form video

60-second myth-busting video: '3 things that won't happen this spring'

Record a 60-second face-to-camera video for IG/TikTok/LinkedIn riffing on Jimmy Burgess's Inman '3 market myths' framing. Three myths to bust, in order: (1) 'rates will drop another 50bps and I'll save more by waiting' — the 30Y has been pinned between 5.98% and 6.47% for 90 days, no rate-drop scenario is in the calendar; (2) 'inventory will keep growing and give me more options' — inventory growth just slowed to 1.49% YoY, that's the opposite direction; (3) 'spring buyers will fade and prices will come back to me' — pending sales actually rose 6.7% YoY this month, demand is strengthening not weakening. Close: 'if any of those three were your plan, let's talk before Monday is over.'

Tactics worth stealing

Pivot content from rates to supply this week

When the rate environment is range-bound but the demand/supply backdrop is shifting, rate-focused content underperforms supply-focused content by a wide margin — borrowers have already absorbed the rate story and tune it out. Content that names a specific NEW variable (inventory growth slowing, pending sales up YoY, Fed financial stability flag) gets opened because it's the first time they're hearing it. Rule of thumb: if your content this week leads with a number that ends in '%' next to 'rate', rewrite the lead with a number next to 'inventory' or 'demand' instead.

Mortgage email open-rate benchmarks (supply-vs-rate content A/B)