Economic news: Historically, rates come down the first week of October, so we will see if they behave historically next week with the big numbers on Wednesday,Thursday and Friday.
But even this week leading up to the BIG week, was busy on the economic news front.
We had several days of interesting news:
- Existing Homes sales were down 1.8% from July, down 5.3% from last August.
- The median price of a home in the US is now $219,800 up 4.8% over last year.
- New Homes sales had a surprising jump up 18% over July.
The big number, not publicized as much, but one that I watch, is the Durable Goods number. This is when companies buy goods (aerospace might buy parts) in anticipation of building or making something.
This number was down 18%. This means that they are buying fewer goods to make fewer things, because it’s assumed that they are anticipating fewer orders.
When you remove aerospace, however, this number is up .7%, a weak number on its own. So aerospace was a big part of this sharp decline, but the lone number is definitely anemic.
In case you haven’t heard, aerospace is down because they truly are cutting back commercial orders in aerospace, and the federal government has cut the defense budget quite a bit as well. As a result, layoffs are happening at all the major companies.
The Big Number others watch is the GDP for 2ndquarter, which was revised to a growth number of 4.6%. That is certainly way better than the meager 2.1% of the 1st quarter, which is considered contraction (or negative growth) not growth.
The Bond Market was having large swings this entire week, but especially today, Friday. We had an increase of .25 basis points. This meant in some programs we saw interest rates drop 2.5% in some .125% – see the chart for your particular loan.
Of course I always recommend locking in so you are not gambling with the biggest debt in your life; then if interest rates improve, we can FLOAT YOU DOWN.
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- How to determine if a property is a good or a bad investment.
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