The Good & the Bad

The market appears to be stabilizing in many areas - inventory, rates, pace of sales/rentals, and months of inventory. More good news is that we are seeing more activity at our listings, lenders are getting more calls for pre-approvals, title companies are seeing more contracts, and builder sales seem to be on the same pace the last few weeks. What this means is there are people buying and selling houses.

For continued good news, here we go. Virginia boasts the 2nd lowest unemployment in the county behind South Dakota. The reason for that is no one lives in South Dakota or we would be number 1. The unemployment rate is just 3%. Mortgage rates have declined 2 weeks in a row. The main reason for the decline were the June unemployment reports. For the rest of the country, the news wasn't as good. Slower job growth means payrolls will stabilize and inflation will be in check resulting in less pressure to raise short term rates. It is crazy how the investor's/the Fed's minds work. In a recent poll of top economists in the country 61% believe the short term rates should not be increased. Whew! Another interesting fact that will help our business besides jobs is population. Our country's population will break the 300 million people this fall. Obviously births are part of it but our benefit comes from immigration - legal and illegal. One of our fastest growing segments for home purchases is Hispanic/Latino buyers. They presently make up the largest minority in our country at 14% of the population.

For good news bad news, here we go. It is not new news, but sales have eased this year versus last year. Nationally we did not break the 6 million homes sold in a year until 2003. This year, we are on pace for 6.67 million homes sold - not too shabby. Again, houses are consistently being bought and sold. Additionally, new home sales increased 4.6%. Bad news - gas prices have spiked to their highest level in 2006.