home purchase: July 14th Market Update: Yelling about Yellen
- 07/16/14 01:23 AM
Good Morning,
I HAVE TO TYPE THIS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS TO MAKE IT SOUND LIKE I’M YELLING. Now that I’m done with that, let’s reassure you that there is no reason to really yell, the word play is something I couldn’t resist.
Janet Yellen, The Federal Reserve Chair who took over for Ben Bernanke this year had a nice little chat with Congress on the state of the economy yesterday. The core of the conversation is that the economy is moving in the right direction but still needs Federal Support. Currently, Quantitative Easing, the main lynch … (1 comments)
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home purchase: July 9th Market Update: How's your business?
- 07/09/14 01:09 AM
Good Morning,
Rates have remained fairly stable. This is both a good and bad thing. On the plus side, the buyers I’m working with right now love low rates and let’s be honest, who doesn’t?
Here’s the bad thing: With interest rates being predicated on supply and demand, rates holding on this lower end, means there is lower demand for mortgages and talking with several Realtors, it seems to correlate that the demand for home buying this spring and summer is much more stagnant than originally anticipated.
How is your business this summer? Are you seeing … (1 comments)
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home purchase: May 14th Market Update
- 05/14/14 01:28 AM
Good Morning,
We’ll keep it short and sweet this week. Hey, there’s sunshine out there and we’re nearing 55 degrees, even I cannot avoid a little spring fever, right?
Rates are remaining nice and low but there are still several financial reports coming out this week that could cause a sharp shift one way or the other. I expect rates to stay within 1/8% in either direction but only time will tell.
Have a great week!
Matt
Rates: 30 year fixed at 4.25% (APR 4.314) and the 15 year at 3.375% (APR 3.474), FHA: 3.75% … (3 comments)
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home purchase: April 30th Market Update: C'mon May flowers, where are you!?!
- 04/30/14 02:28 AM
Good Morning,
I’m going on record with this. When we hit 60 degrees for the first time again, I’m breaking out the Sandals in celebration. Wow, what a long, cold spring this has turned out to be. It seems to be affecting the housing market as well.
Media as a whole is quick to position the latest poor report on GDP (Gross Domestic Product) as bad weather affected. I can see it both ways. I see the slow Twin Cities housing market and make the assumption that few people like to move or look at houses, or even peak … (0 comments)
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home purchase: April 23rd Market Update: Do rising stocks mean rising interest rates?
- 04/23/14 01:46 AM
Good Morning!
Below, you will see that interest rates haven’t changed over the past week. Which makes it a great time to clear up a common misconception that is thrown around way too often in the mortgage and housing industry.
What I hear many loan officers tell their clients is something like this: When the stock market rises, bonds lower and when bonds lower, interest rates rise. In many cases this can appear true. Stocks and bonds are viewed much as opposite investment tools. When investors feel that the economy is improving, a higher percentage of their money … (1 comments)
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home purchase: April 16th Market Update: Heartbleed Bug
- 04/16/14 01:51 AM
Good Morning!
You may or may not have heard about the Heartbleed Bug that’s affecting the internet right now.
I find a need to keep on top of this information because, like many working in real estate and financial services, there is a lot of client information at risk if someone gained access to my accounts. The most crucial data is not at risk, mind you, but it’s amazing what can be done with names, addresses and phone numbers too.
For those of you that want to take an extra step to be safe and haven’t, I’d … (0 comments)
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home purchase: April 2nd Market Update: April Fools lasts a month in MN
- 04/02/14 02:19 AM
Good morning,
Is it spring yet? I’m wearing a short sleeve shirt to the office but it seems that mother nature isn’t getting with the program. Especially with more snow coming later this week. Hmmm, I guess we must live in Minnesota. March snow brings April snow which brings May snow which brings…more seasonal depression?
On the topic of depression, rates have risen day by day since last week. We’re sitting at 4.5% now, but could see this raise to 4.625% by then end of the week. What is causing this trend? Well, my first thought is that this … (0 comments)
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home purchase: March 19th Market Update: Yelling about Yellen
- 03/19/14 02:48 AM
Good Morning!
Once again Rates are holding steady. The big news today is that Janet Yellen will have her first policy making meeting this afternoon after taking over for Ben Bernanke as the head of the Federal Reserve.
With the emotional nature of reaction, it’s good know what many analysts are expecting going into today’s meeting: http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/17/news/economy/yellen-fed/index.html?iid=HP_LN
Big changes or unexpected actions from this general guideline could shift the market up or down. Only time will tell with the meeting coming at 1PM Central today. Personally, I’m not expecting a big shift in the mortgage market but anything … (0 comments)
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home purchase: March 5th Market Update: Sick kids and the home market.
- 03/04/14 11:56 PM
Good Morning!
Ah, I remember it like it was just yesterday. My 1 year old was spending every other week teething and then getting a cold turned into an ear infection , rinse and repeat. I believe remembering this is called PTSD. Then a couple years flew by as I acclimated to sleeping regularly.
So, sitting at home with my son yesterday in the midst of his turn at this blessed phase of life…did I say, blessed? Scratch that. In this cyclical nature of a little snot factory lumbering his first month of steps and lovely diseases onto … (0 comments)
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home purchase: February 19th Market Update: More Tapering to come?
- 02/19/14 12:23 AM
Good Morning!
Interest rates remain steady from last week and a lot of this has to do with what is to come later this afternoon. The Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes will be released at 1pm central today. Both the stock and the bond market seem stalled at the moment leading most of us to believe that investors are waiting on word from the Federal Reserve.
What most are expecting to hear is based on the Quantitative Easing policies and additional advice on tapering down this program.
What Minnesotan’s are waiting for, is tapering of the continued snowfall. … (0 comments)
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home purchase: July 17th Market Update: Ben speaks and rates drop
- 07/17/13 02:30 AM
Good Morning,
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is speaking to the House Financial Services Committee today. In very brief form, he reiterated the Federal Reserve’s commitment to helping the economy and taking a very measured pace of deciding when and where to stop. In essence, it’s nothing new he’s stating here. He’s just elaborating on the ideas set forth which is taming the emotional reaction from his last words.
This coupled with housing reports showing significant signs of slowing in the building sector have lead us to a dip back down in interest rates. In this market, we … (0 comments)
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home purchase: March 20th Market Update: Is it spring yet?
- 03/20/13 01:51 AM
Good Afternoon,
Holy Crap is it cold, welcome to spring in Minnesota!
Rates are near unchanged from last week after a little bouncing around but are trending a little lower and may dip by .125% in the coming days. The main economic news this week is Cyprus, the tiny island off of Greece is in desperate need of a bailout. As I’ve said before, uncertainty is typically good for keeping interest rates low.
The Federal Reserve will be making their policy statement later today and investors will flock to emotional reactions based on how things are … (0 comments)
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home purchase: February 27th Market Update: Rates are lowering. For now...
- 02/27/13 01:20 AM
Good Morning,
This week leads us to a nice reprieve in the rising interest rate trend with rates dipping lower this week. So what changed? In short: Italy. Election results this week sparked fears that the new financial policies, or lack thereof, could reignite the debt crisis plaguing the Euro-zone. Italy happens to be the 3rd largest economy in the Euro-zone which could have a crippling effect as a whole.
In the US, Ben Bernanke is talking Monetary Policy at Capitol Hill and some are thinking expected ideas on monetary policy could spark a rally in the … (0 comments)
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home purchase: February 20th Market Update: Where are rates going?
- 02/19/13 11:46 PM
Good Morning,
Interest Rates are holding fairly steady from last week but there could be some volatility later today into tomorrow. This afternoon the Federal Reserve will release their meeting minutes and investors like to scour and read into the content to try and determine what action the Federal Reserve may be contemplating. The big question on many minds is how long will the Federal reserve continue to spend $85 Billion per month into their current bond purchase program. This artificial demand is crucial to keeping interest rates low.
Market analysts are split on which direction the … (0 comments)
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home purchase: December 4th (really? already???) Market Update
- 12/05/12 01:06 AM
Good Morning,
You will see that interest rates are holding steady and may be poised to dip lower if the current trends continue, although I don’t see them lowering by much. A lot of what is driving the mortgage backed security and bond market right now is the uncertainty of a solution for the Fiscal Cliff. If and when a solution is reached, we could easily see investors pull their money out of the safer investments of these two and move them back into other vessels, which would drive mortgage interest rates up.
One important piece of information … (1 comments)
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home purchase: November 14th Market Update: Fiscal Cliff
- 11/14/12 01:58 AM
Good Afternoon,
Interest rates have risen since last week, Matt. What the heck happened? Well, we could call it the post-election swap or we could call it the ‘fiscal-cliff’ betting plan or lack thereof.
The Fiscal Cliff, or an expiration of tax breaks coupled with a newer tax plan as of 12/31 of this year, is something that will shift a lot of financial markets. The questions are where and why. A lot of this depends on whether there is an agreement to keep this from taking place in full versus some balance of the two. If that … (0 comments)
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home purchase: October 17th Market Update: Voting for President or your team?
- 10/17/12 03:02 AM
Good Morning,
So, did you sit and watch the presidential debates last night or possibly the Major League Baseball playoff game? I chose to watch the latter not necessarily because I feel the debates aren’t worth watching. I just get a little overwhelmed with the amount of fact checking I have to do afterwards to determine what was accurate. There’s just something a little more pleasant about baseball.
The good news in the market this week, median home prices are rising. The bad news, a lot of this is spurred by low interest rates then the question becomes; what … (0 comments)
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home purchase: Apriil 25th Market Update: The Fed said what?
- 04/25/12 05:38 AM
Good Afternoon,
At 11:30 this morning, The Federal Reserve issued their monthly statement and interest rate decision. Traditionally this has big potential to cause a stir in the market and drive interest rates up or down for the coming few days. So what did Chairman Ben Bernanke and co say? The Key points are summed up here. As has been the norm for the past few statement releases, the Federal Reserve believes that the economy is improving but is still cautiously optimistic and does not see raising the key interest rate until closer to 2014 at this point. The key interest … (0 comments)
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