Rates
Well thank you China, not for buying out debt, but for bad economic news.
Rates are at their best levels of the year and their best levels since 12/3/2013. So why….
Well since the Fed is not on track to reduce QE3, some of the guess work has been taken off the table, so now the bond traders are more focused on economic reports, such as China’s PMI (manufacturing report) report, which was at its lowest levels in 6 month.
This has caused the bonds to rally a little, thus pushing interest rates down. We are seeing government rates, FHA, VA, RD pushed back below 4%, hovering around the high 3’s, and conventional rate coming back to the Mid 4’s.
Now next week could be a different story, we have quite a bit of US economic reports and some big ones, along with the Federal Reserve meeting.
Federal Reserve is expected to reduce QE3 further from $75B to $65B, which could affect rates, although most traders feel that their reduction is already priced into the market. And as long as they continue to reduce, in a set amount, say around that $10B mark, rates will just keep their upward slope, gradually. Making it more important to focus on economic reports and just put the Fed on the back burner.
We are still up from our lows in November and way up from our May bottom, but it was nice to see a couple of weeks where rates stabilized.
We are still in a lock mode, any day could bring an economic report which will swing rates one way or another, and the big one will come February 7th, unemployment.
Target
So Target announced that 110,000,000 people may have had their credit cards compromised in their hack. That is almost 1/3 of the US population.
So Target is offering FREE credit monitoring for 1 year, the web site is:
https://creditmonitoring.target.com/
Kuna & Rural Development
From the memo I just received today, Kuna will lose RD ability for 100% financing 10/1/2014, that is unless Congress intervenes.
Below is a map of the areas which will be ineligible for RD loans come 10/1/2014:
And I would have a really cool map to put here, but the government web site keeps crashing, go figure. So here is the link: http://eligibility.sc.egov.usda.gov/eligibility/welcomeAction.do
So get your RD into your lender by September 19th
Lead Generator
This one comes from a GREAT RE agent:
Get copies of all the HUD-1 closing statements from all your closings in 2013, whether or not you represented the buyer or the seller.
And mail it to them, with a letter saying that it is Tax time, and you may have forgotten that some of the information on the HUD-1 will be needed by your Tax Professional.
And then also send along 3 business cards so that if they know anyone else you can help they can pass along your info!
Money, I tell you, Money!
And if you don’t have the HUD-1, shame, shame, you are supposed to keep you records for 5 years. Get with your broker, I am sure they have it!
Thanks Siera for the great generator!