Hey there —

I've been stuck on one number all week. April CPI came in at 3.8% — and that's the third month running it's climbed. 2.4% in February, 3.3% in March, 3.8% now. Inflation isn't cooling off. It's doing the opposite.

Here's why that lands on your desk and not just an economist's.

A lot of investors right now are underwriting deals on a quiet assumption — rates are high today, sure, but they'll fall, and I'll just refinance into something cheaper inside a year. April's print is the data telling you to stop. When inflation re-accelerates, the Fed doesn't cut. The 30-year mortgage sat at 6.36% this week. Underwrite your deal at that number. If it only works on a rate cut, it doesn't work — the cut is a bonus, not a beam you rest the floor on.

One fair caveat: this spike is mostly energy — oil, the Iran conflict — and core inflation is tamer, around 2.8%. So a cut isn't dead. It's just not your base case anymore. Plan for 6.36%, and celebrate if you're wrong.

There's a deeper reason financing is the whole game right now. Roughly 80% of mortgage holders are locked in below 6% — and they are not selling. Fewer deals reach the market, and the ones that do have to pencil on their own financing, not on a refinance you're hoping for.

So this week I leaned the whole calendar into financing as it actually is. Monday's episode looked at the deal worth doing — builders handing out real incentives to move inventory. But the deal is only half of it. The other half is the money. We walked house hacking and Section 121 — the cheapest way in, if you'll live there a year. We ran the hard money call — when a nine-day close is worth paying 12% for. And we mapped DSCR against conventional for the moment the bank caps you out at deal six.

Different tools, one rule underneath all of them: match the loan to the deal in front of you, at the rate that actually exists.

So here's the one thing I'd do this week. Take your most recent deal — the one you're circling, or the one you already own — and re-run it at 6.36%. Today's rate. No cut. Not the rate you want; the rate that's real. If it still works, you've got a deal. If it only worked on the cut, you just saved yourself the lesson.

When you underwrote your last deal, did you pencil it at today's rate — or at a rate you were hoping for? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

Martin