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Down Payment Savings Savviness

October 10th, 2024 by tisner


When you have started considering buying a new home, the first thing you will need to work on is a down payment. While many lenders offer different programs with variable down payment amounts, saving as much as you can is necessary.  Check out these tips a
nd start saving now! 

  • It is important to know, realistically, how much house you can afford, and start shooting for a 20% down payment of that amount. 
  • Turn your $4.50-per-day cup of coffee into $90/month in the piggy bank. Add up similar purchases, decide what you can live without, and move that money (set up automatic transfers) every day from your checking to a hands-off savings account. 
  • Put your savings egg into a nest of high-yield savings or money market account. 
  • Sign up with your employer to deposit a portion of your pay into a down payment savings account.  Most of the time, if you do not see it, you do not miss it. 
  • If a pay raise comes your way, save that unexpected pay:  stay on your old budget, and have the difference in old and new pay direct deposited into your down payment account. 
  • When non-salary payments such as bonuses or even a tax refund come in, sock them away and give your savings a boost. 
  • Did you know that family members can gift money towards your down payment? Make certain you document these gifts correctly for your lender and the IRS.  Mortgage Reports shares more information about down payment gifts. 
  • A part-time job may provide enough each week to add to your down payment savings. Your well-being is important, however, so do not go into a second job unless you are certain it will be a benefit. 
  • If you have investments in stocks or bonds, plan on liquidating those assets when the time comes to purchase your house.  Make sure you document these sales. 
  • You can always borrow from your 401k or IRA, but make sure you will not have to pay penalties.  Talk with your account holder before making any withdrawals. 

Do not let that 20% ideal down payment stop you before you even get started. However, if it seems impossible for you, do your research.  There are many first-time buyer programs available, as well as lower-than-20% down payment options through the USDA, the VA, and state-specific programs.  Learn more about low down payment guidelines and opportunities to help you get started. Planning will help you keep your eyes on the prize of homeownership! 

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Fed’s Waller: Interest Rates to Remain Steady

November 30th, 2023 by tisner


Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller signaled confidence in the slowing economy, saying inflation is slowly moving in the right direction.

WASHINGTON – A key Federal Reserve official raised the possibility Tuesday that the Fed could decide to cut its benchmark interest rate as early as spring if inflation keeps declining steadily.

The official, Christopher Waller, a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, cautioned that inflation is still too high and that it’s not yet certain if a recent slowdown in price increases can be sustained. But he sounded the most optimistic notes of any Fed official since the central bank launched its aggressive streak of rate hikes in March 2022, and he signaled that the central bank is likely done raising rates.

Waller is regarded as a relatively “hawkish” official, meaning that he typically favors higher rates to combat inflation rather than low rates to boost job growth. But he has also become somewhat of a bellwether for the Fed’s overall rate-setting committee.

f inflation continues to cool “for several more months – I don’t know how long that might be – three months, four months, five months – that we feel confident that inflation is really down and, on its way, you could then start lowering the policy rate just because inflation is lower,” Waller said in remarks at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. “It has nothing to do with trying to save the economy or recession.”

Fed officials have previously suggested that eventually, cooling inflation would lead the Fed to cut rates. That’s because, adjusted for inflation, the central bank’s benchmark rate effectively rises as inflation falls.

And because the Fed’s key rate affects rates on consumer and business loans, like mortgages and credit cards, it becomes more of a drag on the economy. That’s why as inflation slows, the Fed could reduce its benchmark rate just to keep its inflation-adjusted level stationary.

Still, Waller’s remarks were a more explicit suggestion that such a scenario could occur as early as spring. Waller also said he thought the Fed’s short-term rate, which is at 5.4%, the highest in 22 years, is likely high enough to keep inflation headed down to the central bank’s 2% target.

“I am increasingly confident,” he said, that the Fed’s interest rate policies are “currently well-positioned to slow the economy and get inflation back to 2%,” Waller said.

Waller’s remarks Tuesday suggested that the Fed’s outlook for interest rates may have decisively shifted in the past few months. In September, the Fed’s policymakers had signaled that they expected to raise their key short-term rate once more this year. At their most recent meeting, which ended Nov. 1, they kept the rate unchanged. Now, with signs that inflation is cooling, the officials are considered virtually certain to keep rates steady again at their final meeting of the year, Dec. 12-13.

Waller’s remarks follow Chair Jerome Powell’s more cautious comments earlier this month, when Powell said “we are not confident” that the Fed’s key short-term interest rate was high enough to fully defeat inflation. The Fed has raised its rate 11 times in the past year and a half.

Inflation, measured year over year, has plunged from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.2% in October. Waller said October’s inflation report, which showed prices were flat from September to October, “was what I want to see.”

In a speech in October, Waller noted that inflation had cooled rapidly even as the economy continued to grow at a healthy pace. “Something’s got to give,” he said, meaning that either the economy would have to slow or inflation might re-accelerate.

“I am encouraged by what we have learned in the past few weeks – something appears to be giving, and it’s the pace of the economy,” he said Tuesday.

Still, Waller cautioned that, given the uncertainties surrounding the outlook for the economy, “I cannot say for sure whether” the Fed has done enough to conquer inflation.

Skanda Amarnath, executive director at Employ America, an advocacy group, and a former Fed economist, said the Fed will be particularly attentive to inflation data at the beginning of 2024, because prices spiked in the first couple of months of the year in 2022 and 2023.

“If we get through the (first quarter) of this upcoming calendar year and inflation has not reared its head in quite the same ugly way we saw the previous few ones, I think the Fed will have a lot more confidence,” Amarnath said, which could “also mean the Fed is interested in possibly lowering interest rates.”

Waller noted that recent data on hiring, consumer spending, and business activity suggested that economic growth was cooling from its torrid 4.9% annual pace in the July-September quarter. Slower spending and hiring, he said, should help further cool inflation.

Last month’s figures “are consistent with the kind of moderating demand and easing price pressure that will help move inflation back to 2%, and I will be looking to see that confirmed in upcoming data releases,” Waller said.

Also Tuesday, another member of the Fed’s board, Michelle Bowman, who has long taken a more hawkish stance on inflation, said there were still too many uncertainties surrounding inflation and the economy to be sure that the Fed is done hiking rates.

“My baseline economic outlook continues to expect that we will need to increase (the Fed’s key) rate further,” Bowman said in a speech in Salt Lake City to the Utah Banker’s Association. “We should keep in mind the historical lessons and risks associated with prematurely declaring victory in the fight against inflation, including the risk that inflation may settle at a level above our 2% target.”

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Fed Raises Interest Rates a Quarter Point as Expected

July 27th, 2023 by tisner


Observers looked for clues on whether the Fed will raise interest rates again later this year, and the Fed seemed to imply it was likely, but not a sure thing.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by another 0.25 percentage point following a pause in June, recognizing the need to do more to contain inflation.

The increase, announced after a two-day policy meeting, brings the federal funds rate, which banks charge each other for overnight borrowing, to a new target range of between 5.25% and 5.5% — a 22-year high.

This is the 11th hike since March 2022, when the U.S. central bank raised the key rate from near zero. At the June meeting, the bank’s policymaking Federal Open Market Committee left the rate unchanged following 10 consecutive increases, saying it wanted time to assess the effects of its past decisions and labor market figures.

At the time, Fed Chair Jerome Powell also said the pause was needed to examine any fallout from the banking turmoil that shook the U.S. financial system earlier this year, while noting that most of the central bank’s policymakers viewed additional rate hikes as necessary later this year to cool down the economy.

Inflation in the United States has declined considerably since it peaked last summer at 9.1%, a level unseen since more than four decades earlier.

Although inflation also broadly slowed in June, with the consumer price index rising 3% from a year earlier to register the smallest increase since March 2021, it is still far above the Fed’s 2% target.

Moreover, economic data have shown that the U.S. labor market remains robust. Citing income gains, the International Monetary Fund earlier this week revised upward its 2023 growth forecast for the United States to 1.8%, compared with the 1.6% projected in April.

Economists and investors are keen to find any clues as to whether the latest hike will be the Fed’s final move this year in its inflation fight. The Fed has ruled out the possibility of cutting the key rate anytime soon, but it has become increasingly careful not to set the stage for the world’s largest economy to tip into a recession by raising the cost to borrow too much.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

By: floridarealtors.org

Understanding Home Equity Loans

July 11th, 2023 by tisner


When faced with the high cost of their child’s college tuition or home renovation, many homeowners use the equity in their property to finance it. How does that happen? There are two ways: a home equity line of credit and a home equity loan. Take a look at the differences between the two before signing on the dotted line:
  

Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) 

  • HELOCs are a second mortgage on the home, but instead of a lump sum, the homeowner typically has a five-to-ten-year “draw” period where they have access to the amount of the credit. 
  • During the draw period, some lenders allow interest-only payments on the amount, while some require principle-plus-interest payments. Either way, pay more than the minimum so the principal can be paid off before the repayment period. 
  • Once the draw period is over, repayment of what credit has been used will begin.  Keep in mind that these payments will be higher than the earlier amounts you’ve been paying. 
  • This line of credit can be used for anything but using it for large purchases or luxury vacations may not be a good idea; start a savings fund for those! Once the draw period is over and the homeowner cannot afford the payments, they could lose your home to foreclosure.  
  • In some cases, a lender will close the line of credit early if the borrower’s circumstances change.  If that money is used to pay their child’s college tuition, they will no longer have access to it, creating financial strain. 

 

Home Equity Loan 

  • Basically speaking, a home equity loan is a second mortgage on your home, which will be used as collateral by the lender.  
  • The lender usually bases the loan amount on the difference between the homeowner’s equity and the home’s current market value. Nerdwallet can help determine how much equity there is in a home. 
  • Most lenders allow homeowners to borrow up to 80% of the home’s total value; it depends on what portion is actually “owned.” In other words, a home that has a mortgage with an outstanding balance will have less equity than a house that has no mortgage. 
  • Unlike HELOC, a home equity loan will be paid out in a lump sum and comes with a fixed interest rate.  

 

While shopping for the best interest rates for these kinds of loans, be mindful of scams!  Stay clear of offers that come in the mail, ads that guarantee qualification, or “lenders” that request fees up front.  Know what to look for when applying for any type of loan, especially those that use the home as collateral. 

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Photo credit: CNN

A Guide for Avoiding Foreclosure

March 14th, 2023 by tisner


Sometimes, homeowners can get into financial trouble by circumstances beyond their control. Job loss, divorce, medical bills, or the death of a family member are usually the culprits. While foreclosure seems to loom over an already bad situation, it does not have to get to that point! Here are some tips that can help keep foreclosure proceedings at bay:
 

  • Contact the lender before the first late mortgage payment, especially if there is equity in the home. Lenders normally do not begin the foreclosure process until payments are 120 days behind, so there is still time at this point. 
  • The mortgage servicer can offer several options to avoid losing the home to foreclosure: refinance the mortgage, a loan modification, working out a repayment plan, or forbearance. Two procedures that will affect the borrower’s credit score are the short-sale of the property, or going through a “deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.” 
  • Selling expensive items–a boat that is only used a few times per year, for instance–can cut monthly expenses, and any proceeds can go towards the mortgage. 
  • Keeping mortgage payments current is more important than paying credit card bills! Credit scores will be affected by late credit card payments, but a foreclosure will do far more damage. 
  • Do not allow mail from the lender to go unopened if payments are currently behind. Mortgage lenders normally want to avoid foreclosing on the home as much as the homeowner. 
  • Credit counseling can never begin too early, and the HUD website offers lists of local credit counselors. Find other helpful information through the National Foundation for Credit Counseling®. 
  • Resist any quick-fix offers advertised on the internet, television commercials, and junk mail, or even from so-called investors. These “rescue mortgages” could be scams, and a home can be lost before foreclosure procedures can even begin. 
  • When the house payment is simply no longer affordable, get advice from an attorney whose specialty is foreclosure, as most will do a one-time consult at no cost. Legal Aid can assist the borrower in finding a pro bono lawyer. 

The best tip is to contact the lender as soon as finances become difficult to manage. Being proactive before the installments become overdue will allow more options to be available. A house is an important investment, and it is home. A homeowner should do all they can in order to keep it. 

 

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Photo credit: USDA

Economy Sends Mixed Signals: What’s It Mean?

March 9th, 2023 by tisner


Inflation slowed and the stock market climbed in the first six weeks of 2023, but then it stopped. A soft landing seemed possible; now recession fears are back.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Maybe it was just too good to be true.

For a few weeks in late January and early February, the U.S. economy seemed to have reached a rare, sweet spot. Inflation was steadily slowing from painful heights. And growth and hiring remained surprisingly sturdy despite ever-higher interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve.

Perhaps, the thinking went, the Fed’s inflation fighters were managing to nail a notoriously difficult “soft landing”: A scenario in which borrowing and spending slow just enough to tame inflation without tipping the world’s biggest economy into a recession.

“We were looking at landings that were pillow-soft,” recalled Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting giant KPMG. “There was a bit of glee about that.”

The financial markets roared their approval in the first six weeks of 2023, with stock prices surging on expectations that the Fed might soon pause and eventually reverse the series of aggressive rate hikes it began nearly a year ago.

Then something went wrong.

It began on Valentine’s Day. The government said its closely watched consumer price index had surged 0.5% from December to January – five times the increase from November to December.

Over the next week and a half, two more government releases told essentially the same story: The Fed’s fight to curb inflation wasn’t even close to being won.

That realization brought a related worry: If high inflation was even stickier than we thought, then the Fed would likely keep raising rates – and keep them high – longer than was assumed. Those ever-higher borrowing rates would make it more probable that a recession, with layoffs and business failures, might occur.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned Congress Tuesday that the central bank will have to raise interest rates even higher than its previously signaled if inflation keeps running hot.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Swonk said. “This has put the Fed back in defensive mode, and they’re going to have to harden their resolve on rate hikes.”

Unsurprisingly, the stock market has recoiled at the prospect.

Here’s a closer look at the economy’s vital signs at a perplexing time of high interest rates, still-punishing inflation and surprisingly strong economic gains.

Inflation

Consumer inflation, not much of a problem, on average, since the early 1980s, started picking up in the spring of 2021 as the economy roared out of recession and Americans spent freely again. At first, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and some economists dismissed the resurgent price spikes as likely a temporary problem that would resolve itself once clogged supply chains had returned to normal.

But the supply bottlenecks lasted longer than expected, and so did high inflation. Worse, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago sent energy and food prices rocketing. By June 2022, consumer prices were 9.1% higher than they’d been a year earlier – the hottest year-over-year inflation in more than four decades.

By then, the Fed had begun, belatedly, to respond. It has raised its benchmark rate eight times since March 2022 in its most aggressive credit tightening since the early 1980s.

In response, consumer inflation edged down from its mid-2022 peak. It posted milder year-over-year increases for seven straight months as supply chains unclogged and higher borrowing costs worked their way through the economy, putting a brake on overspending.

Financial markets appeared ready to declare the inflation dragon all but slain.

Then came January’s unexpectedly hot consumer inflation data. Two days later, the government reported that wholesale prices had jumped 0.7% from December to January, nearly twice what forecasters had expected.

Next came bad news from the inflation gauge the Fed watches most closely: The government’s personal consumption expenditures price index. It accelerated 0.6% from December to January, far above the 0.2% November-to-December uptick. On a year-over-year basis, prices rose 5.4%, up slightly from the annual increase in December and well above the Fed’s 2% inflation target.

The PCE report “adds to the difficult if not impossible task facing the Fed in terms of getting inflation back to its 2% target without driving the economy into a ditch,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at the Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc. consultancy.

One concern is that this time, inflation may prove harder to slow than it was initially. Households have increasingly shifted their spending away from physical goods like patio furniture and appliances to experiences like traveling, restaurant meals and entertainment events. Inflationary pressures, too, have shifted from goods toward services, where price acceleration can be harder to tame.

In part, that’s because chronic labor shortages at stores, restaurants, hotels and other service-sector industries have led many employers in those industries to keep raising pay to attract or retain workers. Those employers, in turn, have generally raised their prices to make up for their higher labor costs, thereby fueling inflation.

Some economists expect the Fed to raise its benchmark rate by a substantial half-percentage point when it next meets March 21-22, after having announced only a quarter-point hike when it met Jan. 31-Feb. 1.

Housing

The Fed’s rate hikes, which so far have had only a limited effect on the overall economy, have walloped one industry: Housing.

Residential real estate depends on the willingness of people to borrow for what’s typically the costliest purchase of their lives. As the Fed continually jacked up interest rates last year, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage topped 7% last fall – more than double where it began 2022 – before dropping back slightly.

The damage has been severe. Sales of existing homes have dropped for a record 12 straight months, according to the National Association of Realtors®. And the government’s GDP report showed that investment in housing plunged at an annual rate of nearly 26% from October through December after having tumbled 18% from April through June and 27% from July through September.

The overall economy

The flipside of the disquieting inflation news is good news on the state of the economy – or what would be considered good news in normal times. Even burdened by rising borrowing rates, the economy has proved stronger and sturdier than most forecasters had imagined.

“This economy today looks very different from where we thought it was in mid-January,” said Peter Hooper, an economist at Deutsche Bank. “Before, we thought that things were slowing down, the labor market was softening, wage and price inflation was coming down.”

With inflation pressures still persistent, Hooper said, “there’s this growing expectation that the Fed has clearly more work to do.”

The economy regained its footing last summer after enduring an anemic first half of 2022. The nation’s gross domestic product – its total output of goods and services – contracted from January through March last year and again from April through June.

Though one informal definition of a recession is two straight quarters of negative growth, most economists set aside such concerns this time. They noted that the economy had shrunk in early 2022 because of factors unrelated to its underlying health: Leaner business inventories and a surge in imports, which widened the U.S. trade deficit.

GDP quickly regained momentum: It grew at a solid 3.2% annual rate from July through September and a 2.7% rate from October through December. Steady consumer spending contributed heavily to the growth.

Economists still foresee a recession sometime this year – they were always skeptical of a soft landing – but now see it coming later than they’d expected. A survey of 48 forecasters issued last week by the National Association for Business Economics found that only a quarter of the respondents think a recession will have started by the end of March, down from half who had predicted so in December.

Jobs

The remarkable strength of the American job market has defied expectations throughout the economic tumult of the COVID years. 2021 and 2022 were the two best years for hiring in U.S. government records dating to 1940.

Job creation was expected to slow this year. Not so far. In January, employers added a blistering 517,000 jobs, far surpassing December’s 260,000 gain. They likely added nearly 208,000 more in February, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet. The Labor Department releases last month’s job numbers on Friday.

What’s more, American workers as a whole are enjoying nearly unheard-of job security despite some high-profile layoffs in technology and a few other sectors. The government’s count of monthly dismissals and layoffs sank below 1.5 million for the first time in 2021 and has stayed there since.

In January, the unemployment rate reached 3.4%, its lowest level since 1969. There are now about two job openings, on average, for each unemployed American.

But a robust job market also puts upward pressure on wages – and therefore on prices. Which means further inflation.

“The kind of wage gains we’re seeing and the kind of tightness in the labor market is consistent with 3.5% to 4% inflation, not 2% or 3%,” KPMG’s Swonk said. “That’s the hard reality of where we are.”

Consumers

Their jobs secure, their bank accounts still bolstered by pandemic-era savings, Americans have continued to spend, shrugging off higher interest rates and prices.

In January, retail sales rose at their fastest pace in nearly two years, rebounding from a tepid holiday shopping season. Even after accounting for inflation, consumers spent their after-tax dollars at the fastest pace since March 2021. Consumer spending on services, ranging from health care to dinners out to airline tickets last year accounted for 95% of the economy’s growth.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, estimates that consumers still have $1.5 trillion in “excess savings” – above what they’d have socked away if the pandemic hadn’t hit – from government aid and from cutting back while stuck at home at the peak of the pandemic.

Still, inflation continues to cause hardships for millions of households. Adjusted for inflation, average hourly earnings have fallen for 22 straight months, government data shows. Many low- and middle-income families are turning to credit cards to sustain their spending.

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.

By: www.floridarealtors.org, Paul Wiseman

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Study Supports Earliest Interest Rate Hikes’ Timing

October 13th, 2022 by tisner


Study says: If the U.S. central bank had acted in early 2021, inflation would be down about a percentage point, but unemployment would be up 2 percentage points.

SAN FRANCISCO – Did the Federal Reserve make a historic blunder by not starting to raise interest rates early last year to fight inflation? And if so, how bad a mistake was it?

Not so bad, according to a paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco released Tuesday.

In the study, the San Francisco Fed argues if the U.S. central bank had acted in early 2021, inflation would be about a percentage point lower than it is today, but unemployment would be 2 percentage points higher.

“The main effect of earlier action by the (Fed’s policymaking committee) would have been slightly lower inflation at the cost of a substantially higher unemployment rate,” Regis Barnichon, a senior research adviser at the San Francisco Fed, wrote in the study.

The Fed, the paper says, likely would have raised rates just moderately because it would have been mindful of its “dual mandate” to achieve both price stability and maximum employment, especially as the nation was still emerging from the deep recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The San Francisco Fed, along with the 11 other regional Fed banks, operate independently but under the Federal Reserve’s supervision.

Fed officials have been widely criticized for calling the inflation surge “transitory” for much of last year, contending it was caused by pandemic-related supply chain bottlenecks that soon would ease. As a result, they kept the Fed’s key short-term interest rate near zero to spur economic activity and lower unemployment, which peaked at 14.7% in April 2020 and still stood at an elevated 6.2% in early 2021.

Inflation, meanwhile, was starting to creep up, with a core measure – which excludes food and energy items – rising from 1% in July 2020 to 2.3% in March 2021 before peaking at 6.2% this past February.

Since the Fed was assailed for being behind the curve, it’s now hiking rates too sharply to tame inflation, according to many economists, and likely tipping the economy into recession by next year. The Fed has hoisted the federal funds rate by 3 percentage points in 2022 after its third straight hike of three-quarters of a point in September. It expects the rate to close out 2022 at about 4.4%.

“They’re going from one extreme to the other,” says Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist of SMBC Nikko Securities.

The Fed hasn’t been the only target of criticism for the price surge. Republicans, among some top economists, also blame President Joe Biden’s $2trillion American Rescue Plan in early 2021 for distributing big checks to households, which goosed consumer spending and further strained supply chains.

Yet the San Francisco Fed paper addresses only the Fed’s role in the episode.

Barnichon argues that even if the Fed could foresee the current price spike, it likely would have raised its federal funds rate by about a percentage point immediately and another percentage point by early 2022, leaving the rate at about 2% early this year instead of near zero.

Separately, Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, agrees the appropriate federal funds rate early this year in light of the Fed’s dual mandate was 2%.

Under that scenario, Barnichon writes, core PCE inflation now would be about 4.8% – still well above the Fed’s 2% target – instead of the current 5.8% while unemployment would be about 5.5% rather than today’s 3.5%, which matches a 50-year low.

In other words, inflation would be less virulent at the cost of fewer people working and a weaker economy.

“The Fed was too slow to begin raising the federal funds rate” and that was partly responsible for raising consumers’ inflation expectations, which in turn led to sharper wage growth and inflation, Zandi says.

But, he adds, “it’s inappropriate to be overly critical of the Fed’s slow response, given the heightened uncertainties caused by the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback.”

If the Fed has acted sooner, the federal funds rate would be a half to three-quarters of a point lower by early next year than currently forecast, Zandi estimates.

LaVorgna disagrees, saying, “When the emergency is over, you take away emergency policy,” adding that’s what the Fed historically has done.

By doing so, he argues, the Fed may only have had to boost its key rate to about 2.5% by now and then paused. A more temperate rise in interest rates could have made for more stable financial markets and avoided perhaps about half of this year’s 24% plunge in the S&P 500 index, LaVorgna reckons.

He also disputes that unemployment would be notably higher than today’s 3.5% and believes inflation would be more than a percentage point lower, though he wouldn’t be more specific.

In his paper, Barnichon says that economic models during the current period are highly uncertain.

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Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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Source: www.floridarealtors.org, Paul Davidson

Mortgage Rates Continue Quick Rise Toward 7%

October 6th, 2022 by tisner


A 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.7% this week, another notable increase from last week’s 6.29%.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates rose this week for the sixth straight week, marking new highs not seen in 15 years, before a crash in the housing market triggered the Great Recession.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average on the key 30-year rate climbed to 6.70% from 6.29% last week. By contrast, the rate stood at 3.01% a year ago.

The average rate on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, popular among those looking to refinance their homes, jumped to 5.96% from 5.44% last week.

Rapidly rising mortgage rates threaten to sideline even more homebuyers after more than doubling in 2022. Last year, prospective homebuyers were looking at rates well below 3%.

Freddie Mac noted that for a typical mortgage amount, a borrower who locked in at the higher end of the range of weekly rates over the past year would pay several hundred dollars more than a borrower who locked in at the lower end of the range.

Last week, the Federal Reserve bumped its benchmark borrowing rate by another three-quarters of a point in an effort to constrain the economy, its fifth increase this year and third consecutive 0.75 percentage point increase.

Perhaps nowhere else is the effect of the Fed’s action more apparent than the housing sector. Existing home sales have been in decline for seven straight months as the rising cost to borrow money puts homes out of reach for more people.

The government reported Thursday that the U.S. economy, battered by surging consumer prices and rising interest rates, shrank at a 0.6% annual rate from April through June. That was unchanged from the previous estimate for the second quarter.

Fed officials forecast that they will further raise their benchmark rate to roughly 4.4% by year’s end, a full point higher than they envisioned as recently as June. And they expect to raise the rate again next year, to about 4.6%. That would be the highest level since 2007.

By raising borrowing rates, the Fed makes it costlier to take out a mortgage and an auto or business loan. Consumers and businesses then presumably borrow and spend less, cooling the economy and slowing inflation.

Mortgage rates don’t necessarily mirror the Fed’s rate increases, but tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. That’s influenced by a variety of factors, including investors’ expectations for future inflation and global demand for U.S. Treasurys.

Source:https://www.floridarealtors.org/news-media/news-articles/2022/09/mortgage-rates-continue-quick-rise-toward-7

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Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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FHFA: U.S. 2Q Prices Up 17.7% – But Over 26% in Fla.

September 15th, 2022 by tisner


Of 100 metros tracked by government-backed mortgages, 8 Fla. cities hold top-11 spots, with Sarasota-Bradenton (up 36.5%) and Cape Coral-Fort Myers (36.0%) at the top.

WASHINGTON – It’s hard to underestimate the strength of Florida’s current home price increases in the second quarter of 2022 based on the Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index (FHFA HPI).

Index scores are based on mortgages – more than half of all in the U.S. – backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Of the 100 cities the index tracks, almost all Florida metros anchored the top 10 for year-over-year price increases, including two metros in the first and second spots. Only one Florida city, Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, didn’t make the top 10, and it was No. 11.

Overall U.S. house prices rose 17.7% year-to-year in the second quarter (4.0% quarter-to-quarter), but no Florida metro area had an increase less than 26%.

Top 100 rank of Florida metros and year-to-year price increase

1. North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton: 36.5%

2. Cape Coral-Fort Myers: 36.0%

4. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater: 29.6%

5. Jacksonville: 29.0%

8. Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise: 26.9%

9. West Palm Beach-Boa Raton-Boynton Beach: 26.4%

10. Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford: 26.3%

11. Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall: 26.1%

Overall, however, the nation started seeing a slowdown in the rate of home-price increases.

“Housing prices grew quickly through most of the second quarter of 2022, but a deceleration has appeared in the June monthly data” says William Doerner, Ph.D., supervisory economist in FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistics. “The pace of growth has subsided recently, which is consistent with other recent housing data.”

Other 2Q findings

  • U.S. housing market has experienced positive annual appreciation each quarter since the start of 2012.
  • House prices rose in all 50 states and the District of Columbia year-to-year. The five areas with the highest annual appreciation were: Florida 29.8%, Arizona 25.5%, North Carolina 25.2%, Montana 24.9% and Tennessee 24.3%
  • The areas with the lowest annual appreciation were the District of Columbia 5.2%, North Dakota 10.6%, Louisiana 10.8%, Minnesota 11.3% and Maryland 12.0%.
  • House prices rose in all of the top 100 largest metropolitan areas over the last four quarters greatest in North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton (up 36.4%) and weakest in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria (up 9.1%).

© 2022 Florida Realtors®

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Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently. You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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Source: https://www.floridarealtors.org/news-media/news-articles/2022/08/fhfa-us-2q-prices-177-over-26-fla

Using Your Credit Card Wisely

July 12th, 2022 by tisner


There are a multitude of enticements when it comes to choosing and using a credit card. Companies advertise rewards points, cashback on purchases, and airline miles, to name a few. Having a credit card can also have drawbacks if you are not responsible with that piece of plastic. Keep yourself in check with these tips:
 

  • Add extra to your minimum payment each month if you cannot pay the entire balance off each time. Compounding interest will increase the remaining balance as well having a negative impact on your credit.  
  • Make payments by the due date, because late fees plus interest on the balance will max the credit card limit, and it could take decades to pay it off. Set up an auto-pay plan or mail your payment one week before the due date. 
  • Rewards seem like a great reward, but in the end, interest costs add up to more than any rewards points earned. 
  • Interest on a cash advance begins as soon as the money is in your hand. Cash advances are loans and treated as such. Beware of “convenience” checks your card company offers, as they are cash advances in disguise. 
  • Protect your credit rating and your wallet by staying within your credit card spending limit. Maxing out the card or over-spending just a little will cost a hefty over-balance fee, as well as affect the credit utilization ratio. 
  • Keep your contact information current with the company, and check all correspondence from them, whether it be via snail mail or electronic communication. You do not want to miss important announcements, fraudulent activity alerts, or changes in your minimum payment due.  
  • If you are paying for everyday purchases with a credit card, it is time to get your finances under control. Using your credit card at the grocery store or to pay utility bills will help in an urgent situation, but only if you can pay the full balance at the end of the month.  

Two more things to keep in mind when using a credit card: the balance should be less than 30% of the credit limit, and monthly payments should be manageable for you. Credit cards should not be utilized as an extension of your income, but as tools to help build credit or keep your score in good standing.  

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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Photo credit: First Citizens Bank

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