Hurricane Hilary, Mortgage Rates, Summit Reaction

comes ashore later this weekend.

The storm is expected to weaken as it moves toward Mexico's Baja Peninsula, but still

drench southern California, southwestern Arizona, and southern Nevada.

We have the details.

What that might mean for homeowners and hopefuls in a minute.

retreat.

We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

A tropical storm watch has been issued for southern California, the first ever.

Hurricane Hillary is making its way up towards Mexico's Baja Peninsula and is expected to

pass into the U.S. on Sunday evening as a tropical storm.

say human-caused global warming can make intense storms like Hillary more common.

NPR climate desk's Julia Simon joins us now.

Julia, thank you for being with us.

look at the link between humanity and severe weather, which seems to be happening a lot

lately, right?

ocean stores a lot of that heat.

When ocean water is extra hot, it's easier for these big hurricanes to form, that hot

water is sort of a fuel and energy source for hurricanes.

So it makes it more likely that an intense storm like Hurricane Hillary will form.

Forty percent of the world's oceans are experiencing heatwaves right now, according to federal

researchers.

That's because of a natural climate pattern called El Nino and human-caused climate change.

Part of the ocean that this storm formed over is around Baja California, Mexico, in the

Pacific.

Temperature anomalies there are part of what's been fueling this storm, says UCLA climate

scientist Daniel Swain.

now, as much as two to four centigrade or three to six Fahrenheit.

That's a pretty significant increment of additional hurricane fuel.

is forming.

But we do know that a really hot ocean can cause more intense storms that produce a lot

of rain, and we're likely to see intense rain in the coming days in Southern California

and the Southwest region.

But again, this is the first time a tropical storm watch has been issued for Southern California.

Is the area, which is your area, you're there right now, is everyone prepared?

over a couple of days.

Los Angeles officials had a press conference yesterday about storm preparations.

They said they're working to help the unhoused community that live in vulnerable places like

riverbeds.

Here's Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna.

Our department's personnel are also working to deploy personnel in the riverbeds to contact

our unhoused population, our unhoused community, and connect them with interim housing resources.

Luna also noted some additional precautions for communities at risk of landslides, like

an area called Palos Verdes, which was already seeing landslides this summer.

The big issue might be that a lot of Southwestern communities aren't built for big storms like

Hillary.

The infrastructure was built for storms of the past.

Climate change means we're seeing many new risks.

normally get rain totals like the ones forecasters say may happen later this weekend and into

the next week?

So thing to remember, don't drive into standing water.

Turn around, don't drown is the message.

There's a high probability of flash flooding on Sunday and Monday in Southern California.

So people here should pay attention to flood alerts, evacuation orders.

Also, a risk of landslides, especially in places with burn scars from wildfires.

There's still a lot of uncertainty about the exact course of the storm, but generally make

sure you have these alerts set up in your phone.

Charge your devices.

Get gas now.

L.A. County officials said people can get sandbags at local fire stations.

Make sure you have water, food, are checking in with loved ones and neighbors, and have

your bags packed for your family and pets if you need to evacuate.

A lot of people think with these storms, it's the winds, but it's really the flooding.

That's the that's the most dangerous.

Yes.

to better protect people, especially for places that aren't built for this sort of weather?

It's really important that as we build new infrastructure, we think about the possibility

of intense storms like this one hitting places that might not have hit before.

If humans stop emitting greenhouse gases today, there will still be some warming into mid-century

baked in.

But by cutting climate pollution now, we can avoid worse outcomes in the future.

Julia, thank you so much.

You may be in for a rude awakening.

This week, mortgage rates climbed to their highest level in more than two decades.

what kind of house they can afford.

NPR Chief Economics Correspondent Scott Horsley joins us.

Scott, thanks so much for being with us.

is just over 7%.

That's the highest it's been since 2002.

A year ago, the average rate was just over 5%.

And two years ago, it was less than 3%.

What this means for a homebuyer is the same monthly payment that would have bought a $400,000

house last summer will only stretch to a $325,000 house today.

So that's a big adjustment for a lot of would-be buyers to wrap their heads around.

Just ask realtor Lee Brown, who works with a lot of first-time buyers around Charlotte,

North Carolina.

interest rates were low.

There's a lot of people who, man, I just should have done it a couple of years ago.

And so that regret can get in the way of making good decisions.

And so I have to remind buyers that what feels expensive today is probably going to feel

like a bargain 10 years from now.

Brown tries to reassure clients to just keep looking at a lower price point.

Maybe that would mean settling for less house, more of a fixer-upper.

It's also an opportunity, she says, to get more creative on the financing side.

I mean, how does that work?

a down payment to instead buy a lower interest rate.

Depending on how long you plan to stay in a house, that might make financial sense.

Also, if you're buying from someone who has a VA loan, you can assume that loan even if

you weren't in the military, and that would probably carry a lower interest rate.

yield was up this week.

This is indirectly tied to the Federal Reserve's efforts to curb inflation.

The bond market now thinks to do that, the Fed's going to have to leave its own interest

rates higher for longer, so bondholders are demanding a higher return, and that's feeding

over into mortgage rates.

Home sales are already down.

Sales in June were down almost 19% from a year ago.

Not only are a lot of buyers sitting on the sidelines, but so are a lot of sellers.

Steve Jolly, who's a realtor in Nashville, says anybody who bought or refinanced their

home in the last few years probably has a really low interest rate that they don't want

to give up.

These low interest rates are almost like golden handcuffs.

People don't want to get rid of that because if they want to buy up and buy a nicer home,

in mortgage.

ago.

Now, that's not all bad.

Buyers and sellers have a bit more time now to catch their breath, maybe get an inspection,

negotiate a little bit more.

Fewer home sales does have ripple effects elsewhere in the economy, though.

It usually means people are buying less furniture, for example, and fewer appliances as well.

More people are looking at newly built houses because there are so few existing homes on

the market.

There are also more than a million apartments under construction right now, which is the

most we've seen in decades.

And as those come online, that should put downward pressure on rents, which is at least

a little good news for people who are priced out of the housing market.

President Biden met with the leaders of South Korea and Japan yesterday at the presidential

retreat.

The goal was to form a partnership that would be a new force in the Asia-Pacific region.

And the hope on the part of the U.S. is they can put some of those aside in the face of

threats from North Korea, China, and Russia.

And President Anthony Kuhn is in Seoul.

Thanks so much for being with us, Anthony.

largely symbolic.

And the symbolism the three countries want to convey is that they are united in countries

such as North Korea, China, and Russia will not be able to exploit the differences between

them.

Now, one of the outcomes is what the U.S. is calling a commitment to consult among the

three nations about potential threats.

So in the event of, for example, a North Korean nuclear test or a disruption to supply chains,

the three will consult and coordinate their responses.

There will also be annual three-way leadership summits and military drills.

I think everyone is clear that this is not a three-way alliance under discussion.

It's still two bilateral alliances between the U.S. and Japan and between the U.S. and

Korea.

And that's because there is still not enough trust between Japan and Korea to support a

bilateral alliance with each other or a three-way alliance with the U.S.

1945.

During World War II, for example, Japan's military forced Korean and other women into

sexual slavery.

Thousands of Koreans were conscripted as forced laborers.

And South Korea's President Yun Sung-yeol essentially said that if Japan is not going

to compensate these forced laborers, then South Korea will.

Japan insisted and laid the matter to rest when the two countries normalized relations

in the 1960s.

But this remains a major sticking point between the two.

And most South Koreans want Japan, not South Korea, to compensate Koreans.

Despite this, the two countries held their first summit meetings in 12 years in March.

And Washington, which had been nudging them to do it, is delighted.

administrations and public opinion that occur in democracies.

Can they really do that?

But the Biden administration is trying to lock in the progress that's been made by institutionalizing

it.

And here's how National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan put it to reporters.

that's being put in place now, from our perspective, has a tailwind behind it that will propel

it forward and be very difficult to knock off course.

or someone like him who has questioned the value of alliances.

And it's also rare that you get this alignment of leaders in Japan and South Korea that is

so friendly to each other.

Korea for its nuclear weapons and China for its activities around Taiwan and the South

China Sea.

Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow are, of course, not happy about the summit.

They're tightening their cooperation.

The U.S. claims that North Korea is already supplying Russia with arms for use in Ukraine.

Russia and China, meanwhile, occasionally stage joint military drills around South Korea

and Japan, probing the allies' defenses.

So the summit could strengthen these rival blocs.

Thanks so much for being with us.

I'm Aisha Roscoe.

Aisha, what's on tomorrow's episode of Up First?

And it's not just the edge of a glacier.

It's a calving edge, as in it's breaking off.

The glacier is in Antarctica and we'll tell you why it's under threat.

and Ed McNulty.

Hannah Glovna.

Our executive producer is Sarah Lucy Oliver.

Our deputy managing editor is Jim Kane.

Sunday morning.

You can find your NPR station at stations.npr.org.