Here Comes The Luxury Market!
Just when we thought home sales were shifting toward downsizing we get NAR’s news release that reports sales of existing homes prices above $1M jumped over 16% in October from a year ago, outperformed every other price segment. The next strongest was the $750k-1M range, up over 12%. Sales of homes prices under $100k fell 6%. As the U.S. stock market raises, so do sales of million-dollar homes, a relationship not lost on the nation’s Realtors. “There is little volatility in th
"Fed Speak" Becomes Uncommonly Clear
Over the years it has been a challenge to read what the Fed says let alone what it is going to do. Those who lived and worked through Chairman Alan Greenspan’s reign will recall how the term “Fed Speak” was given birth. Well, today we have a breath of fresh air, if the economic weather holds fast. Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell appeared in an interview on CNBC today and gave some insight into what the Fed is weighing as it decides when to raise the prime rate in the c
The Perfect Loan File
The media has it all wrong – securing mortgage approval and satisfying credit underwriting guidelines are not the difficulties plaguing mortgage consumers. It’s in meeting the rigorous documentation requirements that most people fall flat. The good news is, the fix is simple. Just scan, photocopy, fax, and deliver every aspect of your financial life. Then, shortly before closing, check everything again. Mortgage consumers who enter the mortgage approval process ready to battl
Avoiding Another Housing Crisis
About seven years have passes since the big housing bubble burst and we learned the dangers of loose credit underwriting and over relaxed lending standards. Now, federal regulators are easing away from the stringent guidelines call for by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. The underlining purpose was to raise the quality of the “prime” mortgages that are pooled into mortgage backed securities sold to investors. In 2011, under pressure to increase home sales regulators agreed to a de
