Buyers? Hope you have 'em. I talked to two people today in our industry who have seen several purchase agreements coming in on their listings. This is a good sign as a home purchased takes it out of inventory. When there is less for sale: values start to stabilize. Unfortunately: I have no idea what is to come and we may or may not be at the bottom of this in our local market. The marketing platform has switched from "buying a home makes you money" to "buying a home is a value right now...but you are buying a HOME."
Home ownership is less perceived as a "right" and it is getting back to where it traditionally belongs and that is that home ownership is a privilege. In no way to I advocate a "one size fits all" approach to home ownership as there are so many people who really find it wise to simply rent right now.
Market info:
Rate still low with the FNMA 3.5% bond up OVER 101 dollars closing the day at $101.31
A group of financial companies including Blackrock and Pimco announced that they are suing Bank of America today. This hit hard. There are some interesting things going on there. Remember the announcement last week of a foreclosure freeze? You can bet that is a knee jerk reaction to something much bigger than we even know. In the short term: keeping foreclosures frozen will allow the markets to soak up excess inventory and may even give the illusion of some housing recovery. I the long term though: we may either see another collapse of some major financial institutions involved with all that is going on behind the scenes here OR we will see tremendous pain as the foreclosures all start hitting the market at once again.
Oil was down $3.50 and is back under $80 a barrel.
Dow was off today 165 points and closed the day at just under 11000 (10978). Much of that comes from losses in the financial sector.
Gold is still breaking records and today was trading at $1332 an ounce.
Beige book is released tomorrow which outlines thoughts from the latest Fed Meeting. I don't see that any surprises are anticipated so with that being the only major report for release the markets will be reacting to the news...
Be well!
Chad
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Chad Schauers
Montana Mortgage Lender, Bozeman, Montana
Personal Cell: 406 799 8613
Personal Email: metchad@gmail.com
