In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending February 26th, 2022... mortgage rates move past the 4% level, homebuyers battle it out in January, and big investors target vacation homes.Hi, I'm Kathy Fettke and this is Real Estate News for Investors. If you like our podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-estate-news-real-estate-investing-podcast/id1079952715Economic NewsWe begin with economic news from this past week.Concerns about inflation continue. The Federal Reserve’s preferred monitoring tool, known as the PCE Index, shows a .6% increase in January for a yearly rate of 6.1%. (1) That’s slightly lower than the more widely known CPI or Consumer Price Index. It shows an annual rate of inflation, at 7.5%.Companies are raising prices because of labor shortages and supply chain issues. Russian military action in Ukraine is also contributing to inflation worries, especially for oil, grains, and metals. Some economists believe a full-scale Russian invasion will push the CPI as high as 10%. If that happens, it would be the highest year-over-year rate of inflation since 1981. (2)The U.S. labor market remains strong. Jobless claims fell again last week. They were down 17,000 to a total of 232,000. Continuing claims also tumbled. They were down 112,000 to 1.48 million. That’s the lowest they’ve been since March 1970. (3)Higher mortgage rates are also impacting demand for new homes. The government says that sales were down 4.5% in January to an annual rate of 801,000 homes. But regional numbers varied a lot with sales in the Northeast down 10.7% while sales in the West were actually up slightly, by 1.2%. (4)Existing home sales were also down. The National Association of Realtors says that pending home sales fell 5.7% in January. Year-over-year, they are down 9.5%. It was the third month in a row that sales were down, thanks to a tight supply, higher interest rates, and higher home prices. (5)Home prices are up by almost 19% year-over-year. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller indexes show that Phoenix had the highest rate of growth at 32.5% year-over-year. Tampa and Miami were close behind at 19.4% and 27.3% respectively. An FHFA report on home prices shows that Arizona, Utah, and Idaho had the strongest home price growth. The District of Columbia, Louisiana, and North Dakota had the weakest. (6)Mortgage RatesMortgage rates went in both directions last week and remain in the 4% range. According to Freddie Mac’s latest report, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is down slightly, to 3.89%. But the Mortgage Bankers Association says they did a U-turn shortly after Freddie’s report. The MBA says the average lender is currently quoting conventional 30-year fixed-rate loans at well over 4%. (7) (8)In other news making headlines...Homebuyer Competition at Record HighCompetition is fierce among homebuyers. Redfin says that 70% of the offers written by Redfin agents faced bidding wars in January. That’s up from 67.7% in December and 61% last year. (9)Redfin says that buyers are rushing to buy homes before interest rates move even higher. The metros with the strongest competition were Spokane and Seattle in Washington state, and Sacramento in California.A Redfin agent in Spokane says that one of her listings had 45 showings in five days and received 14 offers. Another one of her listings had 12 offers and sold for $120,000 over the list price of $525,000.Investor Demand for Vacation HomesBig investors are showing more interest in vacation homes. Demand for vacation homes and short-term rentals, in general, has been growing since the pandemic began. They’ve typically been owned and operated by individual homeowners or small investors. But that’s changing. (10)The Wall Street Journal reports that big investment firms are capturing more of the short-term rental market. It offers an example, reporting that New York Investment firm, Saluda Grade, has teamed up with AvantStay to purchase $500 million w