It’s a tale of two worlds as money on Wall Street floods into COVID-19-resistant sectors such as technology and biotech while Main Street struggles and many retail and public-facing businesses face hard times and tough decisions. With many cities and states scaling back on the re-opening of the economy as COVID-19 cases surge, it is becoming harder to imagine a V-shape economic recovery. Even amongst the backdrop of all the political bickering, more stimulus out of Washington seems baked-in, especially for the hardest-hit industries such as restaurants, fitness, airlines, and hotels, all of which employ a significant amount of folks, and they may be asked to close their doors again. Some positive news from Pfizer and Gilead on treatments to combat the virus is encouraging, but even if these treatments prove to be effective, getting these treatments out to our citizens and the 4 billion global population will be a herculean task.
With little to no inflation and unemployment rates in the teens, interest rates are going nowhere for a while. It is interesting to see gold run above $1,800 per ounce. With global coordinated central bank stimulus packages in the trillions (and rising), there will be a day of reckoning one day in the future, and inflating dollars to pay a historical debt is one way out of this catastrophe. So it’s not surprising to see the rise in gold as a store of real value. Rising inflation is probably years away, but if and when inflation hits, watch out.
Speaking of hard assets and inflation, residential real estate made a strong comeback after the initial shutdown. Home sales are on the rise and banks are flooded with loan applications. We at Insignia Mortgage are seeing tremendous demand for jumbo mortgage product as non-QM loans return and as our portfolio of lenders continue to work hard to approve loans during this difficult time. We continue to have access to lenders who do not require a banking relationship from customers and who are offering purchase-money loans with as little as 10% down up to $1.5 million, interest-only loans, unrestricted amounts of cash-out, and attractive interest rates, and terms for investment property transactions.
