How A Softer Job Market Can Lower Your Mortgage Rate And Spark Pending Sales

Rates dip into the high fives as Treasury yields fall, while a softer job market and changing Fed outlook set the stage for potential cuts. 

Is Social Media part of your 2026 business plan? We share a simple three-part content plan and trending formats agents can use to turn attention into appointments.

Yes, and again, agents, Nikki has given us permission to go and follow her, watch what she's doing, and reuse it, duet, stitch it, rinse, repeat, rip off, whatever. The content is already there for you to use!

2026 Business Plan - if you haven't done it yet, or if you haven't finished it or finalized it, or you need to run something by me, look me up, I'm here and happy to help in any way!

Chapters

• 0:00 Market Update And Rate Relief
• 1:45 Jobs, The Fed, And Rate Outlook
• 3:10 Pending Sales And Near-Term Closings
• 3:51 Building A Simple Content Calendar
• 5:55 Storytelling, Education, And Mini Tips
• 7:05 What’s Trending: BTS, Polls, Tools
• 9:46 Overcoming Overthinking And Starting Small
• 11:55 Partnering With Pros And Using ChatGPT

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:37

Welcome to Monday, December 29th, the last Monday of 2025. How are you, Nikki?

SPEAKER_00: 0:44

I'm doing wonderful. Hope everyone's holiday season is going well as a little bit of a Christmas present for everyone. We had some nice improvement in mortgage interest rates right before the holidays. So that 10-year treasury bond is starting to lower, and we are seeing mortgage interest rates into the high fives pretty consistently now, which is wonderful news. High fives, low sixes. So as the thing as things keep going, it's expected this trend is expected to continue. One of the things that is contributing to that is the current job market. So Yale released a survey that they had conducted that talked about two-thirds of employers or 66% of companies are deciding not to hire next year or deciding to fire people as in lay them off as in lower their workforce. So that's over half of the companies that were interviewed by this Yale surveyor that this Yale survey collected said that they were not going to expand their workforce in 2026. You couple that with unemployment rising to 4.6%. Although this isn't great news for the job market, ironically, it is good news for mortgage interest rates. When this happens, when we see a weakened job market, most of the time the Fed sees alert or a reason to cut interest rates. And with Powell leaving office at the end of the year into next year, and we're us having a new Fed chair, someone that Trump has already stated is and will be more aggressive on cutting interest rates. We should start, we should continue to see this trend for the bond market to lower and those mortgage interest rates to be cut, which will open up the doors for opportunity, open up doors for employment, I'm sorry, and to reduce that unemployment. So that's kind of the goal. So all those things that kind of go around with that Fed borrowing money, how much that interest rate is, affects a lot of things. And so it does trickle down to obviously real estate and shelter and mortgage and interest rate and all those things. We've already seen an increase in home pending home sales in November. Last week I talked about the actual home sales in November rising. Well, when we look at pending, as in other words, how many contracts were written and filed for November, that number is actually up 3.3% from October. So a huge increase in the amount of contracts that were secured in November that should be closing at the end of December into January, which means that we'll have an increase in home sale prices for the December numbers. So all good news on that front. We're just kind of waiting for those interest rates to keep trickling down and waiting for those effects to kind of roll through the market. So the other thing I wanted to talk about, uh we talk about this all the time, kind of what, you know, social media things to do and to post and to post and to post on social media. But a lot of the times, like what doesn't get answered is what does my social media calendar need to look like? What are some ideas for posting? A lot of what I hear from people saying, oh my gosh, I don't know what to post. So I wanted to kind of talk about categorizing topics and putting together a social media calendar. So one of the things that you can do is come up with three categories of posts. So in other words, one that is more storytelling. In other words, what are some, you know, client stories that you can share that have relevance to any sort of topic in real estate or in my case, mortgage? You can do this through a series. Like, for example, I'm going to be starting a series called Mortgage Mythbusters. And what that's going to talk about is using these stories to talk about, you know, things that I've heard in the mortgage industry that are untrue. So just giving examples and saying I had a client that talked to me about X and this is why it's untrue, or this is why it's half true, or here's what you need to know. Um, another category would be like a more of an education-based category where you could just pick out a term in real estate and explain what that term means. A mortgage example would be like, what is APR and how does it affect my loan? A real estate topic could be if I am the buyer, where does my escrow money get held? And what is escrow? What is earnest money? What is escrow? What does that mean? You know, topics that you have that could you could explain over TikTok or over your social media posts. And then the last one that I'm the last category that I'm personally doing is a mini tip of the week. So this would be like 15 to 30 seconds of something that you're explaining really quick. Three ways to help improve your credit. You know, what's the difference? You know, what's the general benefit of a three-bedroom home versus a four-bedroom home? You know, things of that nature where you can talk about just quick 15 to 30 second mini tips that you can also use in or, you know, to kind of build out that social media calendar. So just basically picking three categories, then using Chat GPT, using Google, using your use the internet to give you ideas on what under those categories for subtopics that you can do. Trending right now. So I also looked up what's trending right now from a mortgage perspective or from a real estate perspective, as far as what's going to be trending from a topic standpoint or a type of post that will help get you traction and help get you more likes and more views. And the top three that they said were behind the scenes. In other words, the day in the life, day in the life of a real estate agent are really popular right now. Um, show yourself, you know, video yourself showing homes, video yourself doing paperwork, video yourself, you know, doing whatever it is that the real estate agent does, even going to a coffee or working from a coffee shop or something of that nature. Those are super popular right now and tend to get a lot of traction because people are curious to know what happens behind the scenes. The other one would be polls and quizzes. Now, I personally haven't figured out exactly how to do these, but asking a question and doing a poll or doing a quiz really helps track right now and can actually become really popular and help you gain followers and gain more likes on your post as well. And the last one, or number three, that comes in is a template or a tool that a client can use. So for example, for me, it would be a pre-approval checklist, you know, like need to fill out the application, need to gather my pay stubs, need to gather my W-2s. For you, it might be, you know, talk to, you know, interview the agent, you know, checklist for what questions to ask an agent when you interview them, you know, things of that nature where you can give something useful to your social media people or people that are following you to help increase followers and help increase likes as well. So those are the main three that are the top three for as far as trending types of posts. And then obviously you've got your subcategory. So yes, is there a lot that goes into it? Yes, but it doesn't need to be difficult and it doesn't, you don't need to overthink it.

SPEAKER_01: 7:11

Oh my gosh, you are so perfect on your timing because of the dozen or more agents that I have very closely worked with this fourth quarter and helped with their business plan. Every single one of them has social media on their GPS for 2026. And there is so much overthinking, and it's like, how do I go? Where do I get contact? So, one question for you when you found what's trending, where are you finding that information?

SPEAKER_00: 7:36

Yeah, GPT. It's for me and it's giving me all the references I need and cross-referencing and saying, okay, here's what's trending, you know, the whole deal.

SPEAKER_01: 7:44

So I love it. And I think that agents, they just look at the whole aspect or look at someone like you who is very consistent and there's like overwhelmed of where to start. And what I say is I say if you're doing nothing, start with one, or if you're doing one, go to three, and then we can build it up. Or if it truly is on your GPS and on your business plan, show up and just be consistent. And I love the topics you do because even just a 15-minute quick tip or trick, that's that's just going to be so helpful. And personally, of the agents that I've coached and mentored and watched online, the ones that do the best and have the most followers' engagement are the ones that tell stories and educate. So I love the tip, I think that is so beneficial and useful. And people are looking for help, looking for useful tips and tricks and just ways to go about this. So, what a timely topic for you to cover. And I know you are so amazing on social media. So, where can people go to see what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00: 8:52

Sure, you can find me on TikTok at mortgages from Mn to A Z on Instagram and Facebook under those handles, or you can find me on Facebook under Kevnik Mortgage as well.

SPEAKER_01: 9:03

Perfect. I love it. Yes, and again, agents, Nikki has given us permission to go and follow her, watch what she's doing, and reuse it. Do edit, stitch it, rinse, repeat, rip off, whatever. Uh, we don't have to make this hard. Another thing that I've been telling agents is partner with a great lender, mortgage, title, inspector. Like you don't have to come up with all these posts and all this information, interview them or ask them what they're seeing, the newsletters you get emailed to you, LinkedIn. I follow the commercial team that joined me. There's so much information out here. And of course, chat. Well, hello, if you're not using that, then you're missing the ball because I did as well jump on, and you can get a whole 30-day, 60-day, 90-day year-long schedule. Chat will make it for you for social media. So we really can quote unquote dumb this down and just show up and do what chat tells you to do, but make it your own and be authentic. And I love to stay current with what's happening. Follow Nikki. I'm telling you, just even listening to these calls, you should be able to grab three to five pieces that you can use through the week. And that's why we purposely do it on Mondays, is so you have a Monday market update to set you up for the week. So you can have good conversations. You can go out, you can make calls, you can prospect, you can check back in with people that may have been on the fence, knowing what you know from these calls. So it's so very important to stay on top of what's happening. And that is why, Nikki, I just want to give my gratitude to you for this whole year of 2025 showing up Monday after Monday. We so greatly appreciate you and all this information, the time you take to do this. And we're looking forward to a huge, beautiful, successful 2026.

SPEAKER_00: 10:58

I appreciate the opportunity to share just more information and to be able to have that out there so that people can use it and be able to, you know, do what they want with it. And if they do have any questions, I'm always here to help. So I appreciate that opportunity.

SPEAKER_01: 11:11

Absolutely. And me as well. So we're still doing business planning. There, if you haven't done it yet, or if you haven't finished it or finalized it, or you need to run something by me, look me up, angie gerber at gmail.com, angigurber on the social medias, and I'm here and happy to help in any way.

SPEAKER_00: 11:27

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 11:28

All right, we'll see you in 2026.