Dumplings for a Party, Mortgage Rates Increase, Tepid Inflation
Happy Lunar New Year! Hope everyone is enjoying time with family & friends and eating lots of good food. A big thank you to all of our clients, business partners, friends & family for the great year of the Rat. We are sad to cancel our annual dumpling party – instead I made a video […]
2021 Indicators, Jobs Report, Rates Increase
Insight for 2021: – Basic needs: Between the end of August and December the number of Americans not getting enough food increased by 5M and is now up to 27M or 1 in every 8 Americans. Hopefully this will drop back down by 5M with new stimulus extending unemployment benefits– Service spending: spending money on […]
Rural Relocation Bonus, Massive Appreciation, Jobs Update
Instead of offering tax incentives to lure corporate headquarters, some rural cities are offering ‘relocation bonuses’ of up to $10,000 & a new bike to draw young professionals working remotely to their towns. Rates – improved slightly this week as Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) bounced up, breaking outside of the narrow December trading range. This […]
Shipping Delays, Rates Mellow, Market Euphoria?
Shipping delays, especially for smaller retails who use the more affordable USPS, are worse than ever this year as online retail volume increased nearly double the expected 20% increase. The retailer in this story experienced 20% of orders delayed up to 4 days (in addition to loss of packages) and had to eat the cost […]
New Construction Demand, Home Sales on Fire
“We have been under producing for the past decade,” – Lawrence Yun, chief Economist of NAR hopes that an infastructure bill will bring high speed internet and public transportation to rural areas increasing the demand to build in places where it is cheaper and quicker to build housing. Rates – improved slightly this week as […]
Turkey Futures, Loan Performance, Tepid Inflation
As someone that loves turkey leftovers (porridge, ramen, pasta, tacos) I’ve never had a problem buying/eating a larger. This year we will likely see an oversupply of turkey and lower turkey prices after peak season. Rates – ended the week where they started with some fluctuation in response to Pfizer’s vaccine announcement (upward pressure) as […]
Biden Economics, Jobs Report, Home Sales
Now that the election is finally decided, what does that mean for the economy? Biden’s plans include ambitious government spending on energy & infrastructure. The longer form details from Moody analytics can be found here. Joe’s ability to impart policy change will be partially predicated on the undecided senate elections. The Biden jobs and infrastructure […]
Higher Priced Homes Selling, Builders Confident, Forbearance Update
Homes in the $100,000 to $250,000 range only saw a 4% gain in sales compared to a year ago, while sales of homes costing more than $1 million more than doubled. Lawrence Yun Rates – ticked up marginally this week maintaing the slight upward trend over the last quarter. They remain nearly 1% lower than […]
Migration Data, Jobs Update, Inflation
This NPR story interviews Marie Patino from Bloomberg City Lab as she wrote an article that interprets the migration data during early Covid-19. Though dated to the beginning of the pandemic, it helps address the anecdotal ‘exodus from large cities’. In the US, Manhattan and San Francisco are experiencing urban flight (homes sales in Manhattan […]
Pandemic Impact, Job Update, Home Sales Soar
In a survey by the Federal Reserve, a surprising 77% of people said they were doing ‘OK’ financially at the end of July which is a 2% increase year over year. Some of this sentiment coincides with timing of unemployment benefits. The restaurant sector is experiencing major pain but Americans are consuming 40% more pizza […]