January 7, 2025 A lot of interest rate watchers were very confused late last year. As was expected, in their last meeting of the year, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee lowered rates for the third time in 2024. But interest rates such as mortgages reacted instantly by increasing. How can that be? Doesn’t the […]
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December 31, 2024 We hope you all are having a great holiday season. With the new year we are always looking to bring the latest predictions concerning the real estate market and the general economy. Of course, this also comes with our annual warning – predictions are futile (adapted from Star Trek). No one can […]
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September 17, 2024 We have received news that the job market has slowed down – including a major downward revision of jobs over the past year to the tune of 818,000 jobs. We have seen major progress on the war against inflation. The most recent consumer price index came in at 0.2 % monthly and […]
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September 10, 2024 In exactly one week, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee will be meeting and contemplating lowering short-term interest rates. For the past several weeks, the markets have been counting on the first decrease in rates since the Fed started the cycle of raising interest rates in March of 2022. All indications have […]
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August 13, 2024 At the very beginning of the year, we discussed factors that would affect the markets and interest rates in 2024. There were plenty of factors to discuss—from economic growth to the progress against inflation. Most of those factors were “up in the air” – for example, we had no idea how long […]
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August 6, 2024 We have a very busy few weeks of economic news. While the stock market was reaching record highs in July, the month closed with some important news. As July came to a close, the initial reading of economic growth for the second quarter was released. The 2.8% growth rate was seen as […]
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July 30, 2024 For most of last year, it was apparent that the Federal Reserve wanted the economy to stop growing so fast. Though you would never hear them say that they were trying to force us into a recession, certainly forecasters were predicting a recession. But the recession never came as the economy and […]
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July 23, 2024 A few months ago, we delineated the reasons that listings would start to grow after several years of real estate purchase prospects not being able to find a house. These reasons included long-term demographic factors such as baby boomers wanting to age in place, but finally aging out of their homes. They […]
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May 28, 2024 We hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend. With the weather seemingly getting warmer every year, it seems like summer vibes come earlier every year as well. Of course, we are used to that in the real estate industry because Memorial Day is typically the start of real estate summer. […]
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If the Federal Reserve is waiting for the economy to slow down before it eases interest rates, there is no doubt that they are watching the monthly jobs report for a significant clue. Thus far this year, there has been no sign that the economy is producing less jobs each month. The pace of the […]
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