Point numero uno: My 30th birthday. This Thursday. Tim’s Wine Market on Orange Ave. Everyone cool is doing it. You want to be cool, right?
Know what? I’ve mentioned this in the past three newsletters running. I don’t want to belabor the point. However, I would be remiss if I did not POUND THE CONCEPT INTO YOUR SKULL that HARP 2.0 (the ‘refinance regardless of your home’s value’) program is here. And it’s working. With next to nothing out of pocket. And if your interest rate is in this upper 5s or higher or if it’s an adjust-able and if you aren’t sure whether Fannie or Freddie owns your loan, you’re dumb for not at least checking into this.
There. I said it. I just called you dumb. In a marketing piece of mine. Clearly I don’t understand the point of marketing. But in all seriousness it could mean the difference of a few hundred dollars on a monthly basis for you with very little effort. So if you’re a homeowner and the prospect of an extra few hundred bucks per month in your pocket entices you, maybe give me a call. Juuuuuust sayin’.
Europe continues to… be Europe. Consequently, stocks have enjoyed a solid 2x4ing to the face in recent trading from collateral damage. Not that interest rates really NEEDED another reason to stay ridiculously low, but market participants have thusly declared that they are scared and confused, wet themselves, and went crying to hide in bonds. Hence low rates. Soggy, low rates.
Not even Facebook’s iconic IPO could crack the downturn in stocks, ending their virgin voyage into the open markets at dang near the same place they started. Which gets no ‘like’s from traders.
Another growing concern is the nature of the Chinese economic slowdown. China’s a silly little country in that they run what’s called a “command economy”. So, whatever numbers they want to put out, they put out. Regardless of their factual base. According to the IMF (which I thought for the longest time was the Impossible Mission Force where they train scientologists to kick ass, but no, it’s the International Monetary Fund), China has been the single largest contributor to worldwide GDP growth, accounting for roughly 31% of global growth since 2010.
Now, the numbers they have been releasing have been over-archingly good. Buuuuut (not to sound like a conspiracy theorist) consider that one of their biggest customers (Europe) is going through what I will judiciously refer to as a “bit of a rough patch” and their other biggest customer (us) is not completely spend-crazy again (yet) and you’ve got a recipe for danger. Whether they look good from an economic release perspective or not does not eliminate the underpinning problems. These days we’re all one great big economic body and if one part of the body suffers, we all suffer.
Our latest domestic FUBAR comes to us from JPMorgan Chase. The goliath bank’s CEO Jamie Dimon is the newest tenant of the financial world’s hot seat, as it was recently elucidated that his aggressive trading strategies (which he spent boatloads of cash to lobby for because they weren’t thrillingly “OK” in the current regulatory environment) lost somewhere in the neighborhood of two- to three-billion dollars.
So Jamie! Good news, bad news situation. Good news: You get to keep your job. Bad news: You’re being sued straight to oblivion by your shareholders. And you’re now required to appear before Congress. And nobody likes you. I’m fairly certain the next logical step along this path is being tarred and feathered by a lynch mob. So good luck with that.
Want to bask in a little ray of sunshine? Well, Move.com recently released the top 10 markets showing year-over-year median listing price improvements. Seven of them were in Florida. Orlando was among them along with Tampa/St. Pete, Lakeland, Miami, Naples, Cape Coral/Ft. Myers and Bradenton/Sarasota. Ba-BOOM.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit we’re coming off of some pretty dismal lows. However with the recent shortage of housing inventory, volatility in other asset classes and a steady uptick in contracts being signed I am not altogether surprised. That doesn’t mean we’re “out of the woods” by any stretch of the imagination. Unemployment still drags on the overall economic recovery. Foreclosure activity has re-accelerated in early 2012 although April was a bright spot. But it does point to the fact that the downward spiral we’ve been riding does have an end in sight.
I like to end with a smile. So here’s a video of a kitten fighting against granny smith apples to coordi-nated orchestral music. Arguably the best 2 minutes of your day. I’m especially fond of the flying bitch-slap at 1:11.
