Daylight Savings Time Ends November 4th

What will You Do with Your Extra Hour? Remember last March when most of us turned our clocks forward for Daylight Saving Time and lost an hour? Well, on November 4, Daylight Saving Time ends and we get that hour back.  Sixty whole minutes – what a gift!  What will you do with your extra hour?  Here are some possibilities… 

Go for a long walk with no errands and no destination. 

Upload those digital photos you’ve been meaning to upload and let your family and friends know how to view them. 

Get a head start on your holiday cards.

 Read something strictly for pleasure – poetry, that novel you’ve been meaning to get to, a magazine from the middle of the stack, but no newspapers, and nothing work related. 

Replace the batteries in your smoke detectors. 

Sleep. 

Host a Living Dangerously Potluck Meal.  Invite one or two or several people over and suggest everyone make a recipe they’ve never made before, including the people who don’t like to cook.  Especially the people who don’t like to cook. 

Call a friend or family member you haven’t talked to for awhile and catch up on their news.  Spend more of your hour listening than talking. Of course, don’t forget to turn your clocks back one hour! What will you do with your extra hour?  Please email me at jamie.feole@kw.com or call me at  615-417-4289.

Putting Morgage News in Perspective

 A lot of people are nervous about what they are reading in the newspaper and hearing on TV.  But how can you blame them? 
 
The media is bombarding people with reports about the housing decline and the sub-prime mortgage mess. 
 
However, Chief ECONOMIST for the National Mortgage Bankers Association, Doug Duncan decided last week to set the record straight.  In a private conversation, Doug said that people have nothing to worry about in Texas.  
 
Some of his defenses were…
    €    The foreclosure problem in this country is really a story about 7 states
    €    The biggest foreclosure problem is in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.  These are predominantly manufacturing states
    €    Since 2001, Michigan has lost 300,000+ jobs
    €    The other 4 states are California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada.  In each of these states there has been significant over building.  25% of the foreclosures in these states are on properties that are held by investors who were speculating
    €    California & Florida have been hit very hard
    €    35% of the homes in the USA do not have a mortgage
    €    98% of the mortgages in the USA are performing
    €    Only 9% of all mortgages are sub-prime
    €    75% of all sub-prime mortgages are performing
    €    In the other 43 states, foreclosures have fallen in 2007 from 2006

Mortgage Availability Improving But Hampered September Existing Home Sales

WASHINGTON, October 24, 2007  Temporary problems in the mortgage market are easing and are expected to free some pent-up demand, but disrupted existing-home sales and distorted prices on sales closed in September, according to the National Association of Realtors®.  Even so, prices rose in the Northeast and Midwest.