In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending August 5th, 2023... the government’s debt rating get a downgrade, typical mortgage payment rises, and wind risk data is now available on a popular listing website.   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.   Economic News   We begin with economic news from this past week that features a downgrade on U.S. government debt. The Fitch credit rating agency lowered the U.S. government’s debt rating one notch, from AAA to AA+ saying the downgrade reflects “expected fiscal deterioration” that includes a rising amount of government debt and repeated problems with “governance” because of all the debt-ceiling battles in Congress.   The government still has a triple-A rating from Moody’s but now has “two” AA+ ratings. The S&P had downgraded U.S. government debt to a AA+ rating 12 years ago, in 2011.   As for what kind of debt we can expect in the future, a strategist at Bank of America says U.S. government debt will rise $5.2 billion every single day for the next decade. At that pace, U.S. debt will outpace U.S. economic growth. The Congressional Budget Office is estimating that debt held by the public will reach 118.9% of the GDP by 2033. That’s up from 98.2% this year.   Although the downgrade triggered a stock market selloff, Warren Buffett isn’t too worried. He said: “There are some things people shouldn’t worry about, and this is one of them.” Buffett told CNBC that the downgrade won’t impact Berkshire Hathaway’s Treasury-buying plans. The conglomerate has been buying about $10 billion a week in Treasurys, for at least three weeks in a row.   Fitch also issued credit downgrades for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because higher interest rates have not resulted in lower home prices. Freddie Mac’s chief economist, Sam Khater, said in a statement: “Despite higher rates and lower purchase demand, home prices have increased due to very low unsold inventory.”   Officials at the Federal Reserve are sounding more confident that the U.S. might return to the 2% level of inflation without a recession. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said in an interview: “Right now, the base-case scenario seems to be that we’ll have a slowing economy, but that we would avoid a recession. And I hope that it’s true.” Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee also believes the central bank can achieve a “soft landing” which he said would be a “historic triumph.” Neither one offered any clues on whether we’ll need another rate hike in September.   Meanwhile, initial jobless claims did float higher this last week They increased about 6,000 from a five-month low to a total of 227,000 applications. As reported by MarketWatch, the slight increase doesn’t point to a rising number of layoffs however. The job market is still strong. Continuing claims were also a bit higher. They were up 21,000 to a total of 1.7 million, but the data indicates that most of the laid-off workers are finding new jobs quickly.   Job listings declined slightly in June. The Labor Department says they decreased from 9.62 million to 9.58 million. There was also a drop in the creation of new positions but wages are still high, and the unemployment rate declined from 3.6% to 3.5%. The data might show a little slack in the job market, but overall, it’s still on the tight side.   Money spent on construction was higher in June. The Commerce Department says it rose .5% overall to $1.94 trillion. As for private residential construction, spending for single-family construction was up 2.1% and for multi-family, 1.5%.   Mortgage Rates   Mortgage rates are still hovering around the 7% level. Freddie Mac says the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was up 9 basis points to 6.9%. The 15-year was up 14 points to 6.25%.   In other news making headlines…   Typical Monthly Mortgage Payment   The typical monthly mortgage payment is up about 20% from a year ago. That’s due to a