Shannon Odom's (smodom) Blog

  In a holiday-shortened week on Wall Street, mortgage markets improved on 3 of 4 days, but still posted its fourth consecutive losing week. Unfortunately for rate shoppers and home buyers in Maine , last week’s 3 days of gains were mild improvements; the one day of deterioration was among the To...

The Federal Reserve released its November 2-3, 2010 meeting minutes Tuesday afternoon. Mortgage rates in Maine have been on the move since. The Fed Minutes is a comprehensive review of Federal Open Market Committee meetings; a detailed look at the debates and discussions that shape our country’s ...

After two months of surging sales, home resales fell by 100,000 units last month to 4.4 million homes nationwide. October’s Existing Home Sales tally is slightly below the report’s 6-month rolling average, according to the National Association of REALTORS® — a time span which includes this year’s...

Black Friday is 3 days away. It’s the official start of the 2010 Holiday Shopping Season. Sales are expected to top $111 billion this year and, already, businesses are vying for shoppers and their dollars. Newspaper circulars are getting larger, and in-store discounting is more prevalent. But one...

  Mortgage markets worsened last week as the U.S. dollar gave up ground in currency markets, and inflation concerns mounted. In response to the events, conforming mortgage rates in Maine rose for the third straight week. Mortgage rates have now climbed by as much as half-percent since the start o...

Rock-bottom mortgage rates may be gone for good.  This week’s Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey shows in numbers what Maine rate shoppers have learned the hard way — mortgage rates are spiking. During the 7-day period ending November 18, the average 30-year, conforming fixed rate mortga...

Newspaper stories can be misleading sometimes — especially with respect to real estate. We saw a terrific example of this Wednesday. A “Housing Start” is a privately-owned home on which construction has started and, according to the Commerce Department’s October 2010 data, Housing Starts data dro...

Homebuilder confidence is higher for the third straight month this month. According to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, a combination of shrinking new home inventory plus higher-quality foot traffic is boosting builder optimism. November’s confidence rea...

If consumer spending is a key to economic recovery, the nation is on its way. Monday, the Census Bureau released national Retail Sales figures for October and, for the second straight month, the data surged past expectation. Last month’s retail figures jumped 1.2 percent — the largest monthly ju...

In a holiday-shortened trading week, mortgage markets tanked last week, casting doubt on whether the bond market’s 7-month bull run will continue. Fears of inflation caused conforming mortgage rates to rise in Maine. Last week marked the first sizable mortgage rate increase over the course of 7 d...