Commercial Loan Diet, Inflation Settling, Loans Perform, Rents Moderate
Loan Diets and Drought – from the Fed’s recent Beige Book we learned that many banks are going on a “Loan Diet” meaning they are extending smaller credit lines and are being more selective about who they lend to. In the residential world guidelines and standards have not changed for conventional and government loans but […]
FHA Updates ADU Guides, Home Values and Rents Back to Sustainable Gains, Shipping Moderates
FHA Guidelines – were updated this week to support the use of rental income generated from Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) on single-family homes. HUD’s stated goal is to increase the stock of affordable housing and to expand opportunities for wealth building. If a client is purchasing or refinancing a single family with a legal ADU […]
Conventional 5% Down on 2-4 Units, Jobs Mixed, New Rents Moderate
Guideline Updates – some major conventional guideline updates dropped this week, including a significant overhaul on down payment requirements for 2-4 Unit Multifamily primary purchases and limited cash out refinances (or renovation loans!). Starting Nov. 17th folks will be able to purchase a 4plex as a primary residence with 5% down that can come entirely […]
Auto Premiums Increase, Fed Update, SFR Strong
Auto prices have increased rapidly since the pandemic – 45% for used cars and 22% for new cars – but so have auto insurance premiums. Premiums are up 19% year over year (27% since the pandemic) while inflation is closer to 3.7% year over year. Auto Insurance Premiums have increased for 4 main reasons: Drivers […]
$600M Digital Heist, Fed Funds Rate Exceeds 10-Year Treasury Yield, Home Values Increase
In March of 2022 hackers infiltrated a crypto/NFT online game Axie Infinity and stole $600M worth of digital currency. As these currencies have open ledgers, they are traceable to a certain degree. In this case about 90% of it was traceable and 20% was recoverable. When the criminals attempt to launder the money through a […]
China’s Minimal ‘Revenge Spending’, Consumer Credit Crunch, Active Listings Increase
China’s Economy reopened in 2023 and many economists predicted there would be economic boom similar to the US when our economy opened post covid restrictions. China’s economy didn’t experience the same amount of ‘revenge spending’ that the US economy did. Guided tours booked in China are down from 3.7M pre-covid to 52,000 or a 99% […]
Student Loan Repayment, Loans Perform, Home Values Steady
Student Loan interest resumes in September and loan payments start in October after a 3.5 year hiatus. Many of the largest pre-pandemic loan servicers are gone and new repayment plans are available for low-income borrowers. Makes sure to log into the U.S. Government fed loan portal and figure out which repayment plan makes the most […]
Fee-Flation, Rents and Inflation Cool, Loans Perform
A $30 hamburger gives insight into $65B Americans spend on junk fees every year. I ordered delivery a few times during the pandemic and one time the fees were higher than the food ($31 in fees on a $29 order). It was a nasty bait and switch and strangely I haven’t ordered from a tech […]
Indicators, Inflation Declines, Home Values Increase
Indicators – Threads became the fastest adopted app in history with 100M users in the first week. Nasdaq is rebalancing its portfolio as the tech giants Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, and Tesla are making up too much of the pie (44% of the value). The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) takes action against another large […]
The Rise of LNG, Jobs Update
The Rise of American Natural Gas – in the early 1990s natural gas was a small player in the US power market and the US only imported. Around 2006-8 there was a revolution in shale drilling. The combination of Hydraulic fracking technology and stronger storms (like Katrina that caused gas prices to spike) created an […]