Three things landed inside a day and they point the same direction. FHFA's House Price Index rose 0.3% in May and 2.2% year over year; Case-Shiller was up nominally but behind inflation, which Scotsman Guide read across both as affordability deteriorating while owners lost ground in real terms. Realtor.com had the second-quarter homeownership rate flat at 65.0%. Then the Consumer Policy Center put brokerage administrative and transaction fees at $400 to $600 per side, sometimes over $1,000, and close to $2 billion a year. Separately, an open letter to FHFA, HUD and CFPB published on HousingWire this morning argues the same premise from the policy side: supply improved, payments did not, so the remaining levers are payment levers — LLPAs, FHA MIP, eligibility. It is an opinion piece, not a rule. But when a fee study, two price indices and a policy letter all reframe affordability as a cost-of-the-transaction problem in the same week, that is the version of the story consumer outlets pick up next. The marketing implication is simple and slightly uncomfortable: your borrowers are about to start asking what the fees are, and most originators have never published theirs.
The rate side gives you no cover to change the subject. The 30-year is 6.75% this morning, off yesterday's 6.82% but still nine basis points higher than a month ago and sitting near the top of a 90-day range that runs 6.30% to 6.82%. On a $400,000 loan that is about $2,594 a month. You cannot market a drop, because there hasn't been one. What you can market is clarity — and this is the rare week where clarity has a news hook attached to it. The segment that responds is the one holding a note above 7%: on the same $400,000 balance they are paying roughly $2,729, so today's number is about $135 a month better without needing rates to move at all. That is a real conversation. It just has to survive the first question about closing costs, which is exactly where an unprepared answer loses the file.
So publish the cost sheet. One page, plain language, every line item a borrower would actually see: origination, appraisal, title, recording, prepaids, and what you personally charge. Put a real dollar range next to each one for a $400,000 loan rather than a percentage. Do not frame it as a promotion — frame it as "here is what this costs, before you ask." The Fed statement this afternoon guarantees you an audience that is already thinking about their mortgage today, and a fee page is the one asset that converts that idle attention into a call, because it answers the question people are too embarrassed to ask. Pair it with a short video that separates the two numbers borrowers keep merging: the price of the house barely moved this year, their payment did, and those have different causes and different fixes.
write the one-page closing-cost sheet for a $400,000 loan in your market, publish it somewhere with a link, and send it to every past client whose rate starts with a 7 — no pitch, just the sheet and one line offering to run their number.