For those real estate buyers that have been waiting, the fall is a great time to pursue that Incline Village Listing that you have been watching all summer.  As the leaves turn yellow with fall, so does the optimism that sellers will find a buyer before the snow flies.  You can surprise that seller with an offer that might be to your advantage.  I am here to help buyers find the right real estate and price in Incline Village. 

Tim Lampe, Lakeshore Realty, your agent by choice for 28 years.

Read on for national economic updates and comments..

The credit markets are thoroughly confused by governmental tinkering, notably the Fed's on-again/off-again declarations that it will start buying up more Treasury securities. Piled on top of that confusion at present is a kind of slump, a sense that the markets are going nowhere. As a consequence, interest rates are reacting to the negativity (notice the latest 10-note yields), and world investors are rushing for safe havens, helping Treasury security rates rise and pushing up the value of gold. All of this, of course, has been made worse by the evidence of pessimism and uncertainty in the Consumer Confidence Index.

Dare I suggest that it's not as bad as it looks? We're becalmed, with nothing currently moving the markets higher--or, truth to tell, lower. We're looking at responses to data from the recent past. We await further insight into the near-term future. Until we get that insight, the markets may look pretty much as they do now. Not a pretty sight, but not a harbinger of a second dip to the recession, either. We're best to hang in there, watching the markets with care.

Comments by Steve Peterson.  Thanks Steve.!  Tim Lampe

 

KEY INDICATORS

 

Gold $1307.30/ounce [up]

Crude Oil(Brent) $79.07/brl [down]

U.S. Dollar to…

    Euro .7434 [down]

    Japanese Yen 83.87 [down]

6-mo Treasury Bill Yield 0.19%

10-yr Treasury Note Yield 2.47%

[6-month unchanged, 10-yr down 12 bps]

11th Dist Cost of Funds 1.753%[-]

30-yr Fixed-rate Mortgage 4.75%

15-yr Fixed-rate Mortgage 4.22%

1-yr ARM 3.84%

[HSH averages rates: 30-yr

unchanged 3 bps;15-yr up 1 bp; 1-yr ARM up 3 bps]

 

Mortgage Bankers Association Mortgage Applications Index

week ending 9/17

  Overall

    790.6 (down 1.4%; down 8.9%

the week prior)

  Purchase Money Loans

    177.6 (down 3.3%; down 0.4%

            the week prior)

  Refinancing Loans

    4357.4 (down 0.9%; down 10.8%

the week prior)

 

Jobless Claims 9/18

    465,000 – prior week 450,000 – continuing claims at 4.489 m

 

Existing Home Sales Aug

    Up 7.6% - still near record low

 

Conference Board Leading Indicators Index Aug

    Up 0.3%

 

New Home Sales Aug

    Unchanged from July – months of supply also unchanged at 8.6

 

Weekly Commentary

 

The news creating the biggest concerns in the markets—all markets—is the very recent Consumer Price Index, which fell from August’s 53.2 to a September reading of 48.5.

 

“The conclusion that consumers remain depressed and view conditions as recessionary remains inescapable,” writes Scott Hoyt of Moody’s Analytics. Indeed, there is talk of a possible double-dip recession once again in the financial press.

 

We can try to ease our concerns by remembering that this represents consumer opinions, not scientific data drawn from the economy, and that the opinions are strongly effected by intangibles, such as worries that followed the massive (expected) layoffs of government census bureau workers. But we must remember that a great majority of our economy is made up of purchases by precisely the people whose opinions have shown up in the Consumer Confidence Report. The Report, therefore, seems to be a reminder that the recovery will remain slow and that we’ll continue to waver between confidence and worries about another recessionary dip.

 

Investors in the credit markets and stock markets have already, for several days, been displaying deep concern. The dollar has declined markedly against the euro, and the 10-year Treasury note’s yield drop has given us pause. Investors are rushing for safe havens. This fact is underscored by the remarkable rise of the cost of gold, now above $1300 an ounce.

 

However, if we step back from the apparent anxieties, what we see is markets in stasis—interest rates generally moving very little (especially mortgage rates), as if waiting to see what the current doldrums may lead to. Meanwhile, the ongoing stream of economic indicators tells us very little. The jobless claims numbers almost seem to be playing games with our expectations as they decline for several weeks and then pop back up.

 

Much has been written about the fact that, even with a 7.6% rise for existing home sales, we’re still dragging the bottom of historical levels of sales. Two facts need to be asserted, though. One is that existing home sales data is necessarily backward-looking, since only completed sales are included. The second, is that a 7.6% rise, while not producing what could be called a stronger market, is still not a decline. The parking brake seems to have been set; the market is unlikely to fall further.

 

But the parking brake seems currently to be set for the entire economy, restricting forward motion as well as further reverses. We wait … but we may not experience further movement for several more weeks.