Rates
Well sending out rates 1 day early, will be out of town, volunteering my time on Friday with a GREAT organization.
This week we saw rates, once again, fall to 2014 lows, and we haven’t see this good of rates since early October, late September!!!
So what is up, well it is all about Russia and Ukraine. Lots of action over there after Sunday’s elections with more and more Ukraine being broken up and absorbed by Russia.
I spoke recently to some people in the “Know” about the situation and actually have relatives over there. There is a sense that Russia will continue to take piece by piece of Ukraine until all of it is back under the Iron Curtain.
So this that being said, rates will follow suit until either Russia has all of Ukraine or until the Bond traders just write off Ukraine and it becomes a non-story. In both cases, this could be drawn out for another month, which means rates could continue to slide!
Looking at US news, which is rates were based on this, we would have rates in the low 5’s by now:
-Durable Goods up 0.8% vs est. of -0.5%
-Case-Shiller home index, +12.4% vs est. of 11.8%
-Consumer Confidence 83.0 vs last month of 82.3
-Initial jobless claims 300K vs est. of 318K
-Pending home sales 0.4% vs est. of 1.6%
So all items point to positive, although homes sales have dropped a little, with rates at where they are, we expect to see a bounce.
Consumer confidence is HUGE, and a very key number, this is some of the highest reading we have seen, and shows that consumers are more confident in their lives which means they are more likely to spend money!!!
So I am cautiously Floating right now, if some solution to Ukraine comes up, rates are going to go up, HARD and FAST, we are seeing conventional rates in the low 4’s and we could tick to the high 3’s in the next couple of days. Where as FHA/VA/RD are already in the high 3’s and are trending to the mid 3’s probably in the next week, although 3.5% is a tough nut to crack for govie rates.
US News Article
Here is a pretty good article which you could send out to clients regarding questions a seller should ask of a realtor.
And you should be prepared for these questions as well:
Link here: http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2014/05/28/5-questions-to-ask-before-choosing-a-real-estate-agent
Email addresses
With the ease of getting a new email address from Google, or Microsoft, or Yahoo, it still surprises me how many Realtors are still using personal email addresses to do business.
Or have really goofy email address that isn’t showing professionalism.
Or are using email address that was created for them with odd letters and numbers in them.
So some Professional advice:
1-Don’t use personal email address for business.
2-Make sure your email address is short, sweet, simple and to the point.
Having: TheBestRealtorinAllofIdahoandBoise@gmail.com is wayyyy too complex for someone to remember.
Or having: johndoe568097@gmail.com just doesn’t make sense.
Think about what you want to say and how you want to come across, and just start with your name:
Jerry.robinson@msn.com or jerry_robinson@msn.com or jerry.robinson.loan@msn.com.
Put periods or dashes, and if it doesn’t work for Gmail, try Yahoo or Microsoft.
Get new email addresses here:
www.gmail.com
www.live.com
www.yahoo.com
And while I am on this subject, I have a specific email for when companies what me to sign up for them, as an example, went to a shoe store and got a pair of new shoes, the clerk said that if I sign up for their newsletter, I would get 3 free pairs of socks. So I gave them my specific email address I have just for this:
Dontspamjerry@gmail.com
Bam! 3 pairs of new socks, retail value $21, and I don’t have to worry about stupid emails in my personal email account!
So anytime some company asks for my email address, I give them that one, then 1x per year I go in there and delete everything all at once.
AND
How do I keep track of all my email addresses and all my passwords, well there are lots of password managers out there, GET ONE!!!
I use PasswordBox, link here: http://j.pbox.io/EI03WLtT
It runs me $12/year and it is installed on all my computers and on my iPhone, super encrypted and REALLY easy to use. I would highly recommend it.