Inside Lending

QUOTE OF THE WEEK..."If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it."--William James INFO THAT HITS US WHERE WE LIVE...One result we care a lot about is a turnaround for new homes. We haven't attained it quite yet, with New Home Sales down 2.3% in August, at a 295,000 a...

"Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have."--Zig Ziglar, American author and motivational speaker INFO THAT HITS US WHERE WE LIVE...To help the economy succeed, the Fed is certainly using its ability to the max. Coming out of the FOMC meeting Wednesday, the Fed announced "O...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK…“The lure of thedistant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where youare.”–John Burroughs, American naturalist and essayist INFO THAT HITS US WHERE WE LIVE…The great opportunity now is for homebuyers to get a mortgage at an historically low rate. Freddie Mac...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK..."Believing in progressdoes not mean believing that any progress has yet been made."--Franz KafkaINFO THAT HITS US WHERE WE LIVE...Major progress has yet to be made inthe housing recovery, but we can keep believing in it, since the dataisn't all negative. For example, Pending H...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK…“In the middle ofdifficulty lies opportunity.”–Albert EinsteinINFO THAT HITS US WHERE WE LIVE…Last week’s “difficulty”for the housing market came from the news that New Home Sales dropped0.7% for July, to a 298,000 annual rate. They’ve been in this low rangesince May of last yea...

This Week’s Forecast NEW HOME SALES, Q2 GDP, CONSUMER FEELINGS...Observers expect Tuesday's New Home Sales numbers to hold for July, coming in just a tad below June. Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims should show a sign of hope, with that number forecast a little lower. Friday, all eyes will be o...

INFO THAT HITS US WHERE WE LIVE...Last week included both problems and progress in the housing market. Getting the probs out of the way, June Existing Home Sales came in down 0.8% versus May, to an annual rate still below 5 million units, lifting the months' supply to 9.5. But all the sales decli...

Review of Last Week DEBT WORRIES WOBBLE STOCKS...The word of the week was "debt" as investors worried about both Italy's sovereign debt problems and the inability of the politicians in Washington to get to agreement on raising the U.S. debt ceiling. With these uncertainties, stocks wobbled off th...

WITH HOME FIXES, SAFETY FIRST!More and more people are doing their own home upgrades. Here's how to be safe:1. Always wear safety glasses.2. Wear earplugs if it's noisy.3. When spraying paint or herbicides or installing insulation, cover up head to toe and wear a respirator. 4. The 4-to-1 rule wi...

INFO THAT HITS US WHERE WE LIVE...It finally appears seeds are being planted for a housing recovery. Fannie Mae's monthly survey reported that Americans expect home prices to drop just 0.5% in the next year. Some reported this as a negative because a 0.7% price gain was expected last month. But o...