George Saunders, Author at Mortgage and Refinance Broker, Queens NY

Here Comes The Fed

June 13, 2023 Fifteen months ago, the Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee met and raised short-term interest rates for the first time in almost four years. Since then, there has been an automatic rise in short-term rates each time they have met – ten times in all. In a previous commentary we spoke about […]

Seasonality, Debt and Banks

May 30, 2023 Why did we put these three words together? First, we just celebrated Memorial Day. Though summer does not start officially for a few weeks, Memorial Day is the unofficial start of the summer season. It is the time that school starts to let out and the masses plan their vacations. In the […]

The Tide is Turning

May 23, 2023 For a year we have had to deal with rising interest rates and lower home affordability. Much of this was expected after record-low interest rates helped fuel a real estate purchasing frenzy which resulted in prices increasing by double digits for the past few years. Fast forward to today, and home prices […]

The Tide is Turning

May 23, 2023 For a year we have had to deal with rising interest rates and lower home affordability. Much of this was expected after record-low interest rates helped fuel a real estate purchasing frenzy which resulted in prices increasing by double digits for the past few years. Fast forward to today, and home prices […]

Does It Feel Like a Recession?

May 16, 2023 Fannie Mae’s economists say a recession is coming. So does the Mortgage Bankers Association. As a matter of fact, 58% of economists are predicting a recession coming in the near future. Some even are predicting that the recession has started in the second quarter, but most are now expecting the start to […]

Pulse of the Economy: Jobs

economic forecast real estate Queens NY 2023

May 9, 2023 It has been a crazy first quarter. It is amazing that the economy produced approximately one million jobs during the first quarter of the year. Everyone knew that the pace of job creation was not likely to continue, especially since we have already replaced the number of jobs lost during the pandemic-induced […]

Triple Whammy Time

April 25, 2023 Every week seems to be a big week when it comes to economic data and events. However, it is not often we see the triple whammy of events which will occur this week and next. This period typically occurs once or twice per year. What are these events? First, this week we […]

There Are Predictions and Then There Are Predictions

April 18, 2023 We are now over one-quarter of the way through the year. We will soon have the first measure of economic growth for the first quarter of the year – just in time for the Federal Reserve to meet again and decide whether to raise short-term rates again. Thus, we feel that it […]

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

April 11, 2023 Excuse our overuse of common cliches. But we can find no other description of the dilemma facing the Federal Reserve. We would not want to be in their place. On one hand, the jobs market has been red hot up until now and inflation is still a major concern. When you get […]

Can The Machine Continue Humming?

real-estate-Queens-NY-forecast-optimism-2021

April 4, 2023 The employment sector of the economy has been nothing short of amazing. Close to full employment, we lost an amazing number of jobs during the pandemic – close to 25 million. By July of last year, we had recovered those jobs and it was expected that the pace of job creation would […]