New Home Sales: December 2012

Today, the U.S. Census Department released its monthly New Residential Home Sales Report for December showing a notable monthly decline with sales falling 7.3% since November but rising 8.8% above the level seen in December 2011 and remaining at an historically low level of 369K SAAR units.

It's important to recognize that the inventory of new homes appears to now be bouncing around a very low 151K units, near the lowest level seen in in at least 47 years while the median number of months for sale has improved to 4.6.

The monthly supply increased to 4.9 months while the median selling price increased 13.86% and the average selling price increased 15.63% from the year ago level.

The following chart show the extent of sales decline to date (click for full-larger version).

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims January 24 2013

Today’s jobless claims report showed a decline to both initial and continued jobless claims as initial claims trended well below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment claims declined by 5,000 to 330,000 claims from a revised 335,000 claims for the prior week while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 71,000 claims to 3.157 million resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.5%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 1.69 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.86 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 5.56 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Wedding, Work and Realty TV ha

Hola Chicas! So today I had a really good TV update post planned ...
there is SO much going on I have THREE of our TV's being held hostage by DVR because of all of these shows on right now ....

Pretty Little Liars
(Holy Toby! What is happening?)
 Kourtney & Kim take Miami 
 Real Housewives of Beverly Hills AND Atlanta 
(Kenya is cray-cray can we all agree on that?)
Private Practice
Honey Boo Boo 
(don't judge, it's comedy at it's finest!)
The Good Wife 
Grey's Anatomy
Nashville
and ...
Duck Dynasty
(yes, I let Chris watch this one show on "my" dvr TV haha I am a good fiance!)

There are sooo many more I am just drawing a blank ... 

Anyway, I wanted to do a TV catch up post but honestly there have been too many more important things going on in this crazy life of mine, so I thought I would share those instead ;)

In no particular order ... 

We finalized Bridesmaids Dresses!!

Whitney, Kim, Chrissy & Emily 
(Missing Kelly!:( She couldn't go. And Ella and Ava too!) 

We had a girl's day and went back up to Bridal and Formal in Cincinnati, OH to finalize and purchase the dresses and I am SO excited because everyone is going to look perfect and so pretty! Each of my friends are wearing the same brand dress (Waters) but in different styles and  3 different colors ... kind of a blush/light pink, a champagne and a stone color which is like grey kind of. They are all gorgeous!!!! Can't wait to show everyone!

I also tried on my dress again and they had a smaller sample size this time so it fit a little better and I LOVED it so much more than I even did the first time when I bought it!!! Ahhhhh!!! It's so pretty!!!!!!

I am loving this makeup ... on one of my fave PLL ladies ... 

How do you feel about that for my wedding makeup?

I love it! Looks so natural but stunning! 

Do you know about custom stamps? Or have I been under a rock?

I came across an advertisement in a Shutterfly magazine I got in the mail about ordering custom photo stamps from Stamps.com and I thought to myself "hmmm.... now that's amazing!" 

So of course I got online instantly and ordered some for our Save the Date's that are going out this week ... and we finally got them in the mail and they are EVEN MORE AMAZING in person!!!

Are you dying?

How cute are those? 

Ahhh I just love them! They are my new favorite thing! 

They are BIG too! Like over twice the size of a regular ugly stamp ha. Love them!! 

It was super easy too, you basically just upload a picture and Ta-da! 

View the wesbite and order some HERE

Lastly on the wedding front, I ordered Frankie's tux ... 

Brace yourself .... 

Precious!
He will be so handsome I can not even stand it!!
So excited!

Speaking of Frankie, 
and my never ending, ever growing, sometimes crazy, love for him ....
Look what I saw today and couldn't help but LOL ....

Bahahahahaha
So true! I love it.
I literally laugh out loud every time I read it ha!

In Real Estate News .... 
Yours truly has been quite the little Realtor lately ;)

Lexington Herald Leader's "Realtor of the Week" in last Sunday's paper!

So awesome, loved it, and so did everyone else! My Fbook and phone were blowing up with messages! :)

Then .... 

Double spot ad in Skirt! Magazine 
in the Fabulous Faces of Real Estate in Lexington, KY article! 

I can't wait for this year! My business is growing more and more every day!
I just know we are going to kill it this year!
If you're in or around Lexington please remember me when you know someone looking to buy or sell!
And if you're not in Lexington, that's ok too ... I can refer you to a great Realtor in your area!
I have Realtor friends in a lot of other states that would love to help :)
Buying or Selling a home is a BIG deal ... don't go at it alone, work with a professional!
After all, I always tell people, if you were having trouble with a tooth you would go to the dentist and let the professional work on it, not try to work on it yourself ha! So the same should be true with your home, which is the single biggest purchase in your life!

Pinterest Snack ... 

If you haven't seen these on Pinterest or tried them yet then you need to.

I made them for a lunch at my office and literally they are delish!

And soooo easy! Takes like 15 min total. So yummy. 

Perfect for Valentine's Day school treats too! 

Lastly, 

a Birthday Shout Out! 

Happy Birthday Leslie!!

Leslie is my brother's girlfriend, and also my assistant :) And she just had a birthday over the weekend so I wanted to give her another little bday wish just because I love her ha :) Glad you had a good birthday! XO!

Well I think that's it for now ... 

I have listed 3 new houses this past week so going to post some cute house pics soon. 

And of course more wedding updates as they come ... I am trying to keep some things a surprise but it's so dang hard! I am already dying to show Chris my dress... but don't worry, I'm not! He will have to wait ha! 

XO,

FHFA Monthly Home Prices: November 2012

Today, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released the latest results of their monthly house price index (HPI) showing that in November, nationally, home prices increased 0.56% from October and rose 5.67% above the level seen in November 2011.

The FHFA monthly HPI are formulated from home purchase information collected from mortgages that have been sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Reading Rates: MBA Application Survey – January 23 2013

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) publishes the results of a weekly applications survey that covers roughly 50 percent of all residential mortgage originations and tracks the average interest rate for 30 year and 15 year fixed rate mortgages as well as the volume of both purchase and refinance applications.

The purchase application index has been highlighted as a particularly important data series as it very broadly captures the demand side of residential real estate for both new and existing home purchases.

The latest data is showing that the average rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage (from FHA and conforming GSE data) increased 1 basis point to 3.51% since last week while the purchase application volume increased 3% and the refinance application volume increased 8% over the same period.

Clearly, the Federal Reserve's QE3 announcement and implementation has had a notable effect on mortgage rates in recent weeks continuing to lift refinance application activity and possibly helping to establish a base of sorts to purchase applications.

The question is though, if the Fed is stimulating this activity by forcing artificially low rates, what would these trends look like if prevailing rates were based on a more fundamental market function?

The following chart shows the average interest rate for 30 year and 15 year fixed rate mortgages since 2006 as well as the purchase, refinance and composite loan volumes (click for larger dynamic full-screen version).

Existing Home Sales Report: December 2012

Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Existing Home Sales Report for December showing a decrease in sales with total home sales dropping 1.0% since November but climbing 12.8% above the level seen in December 2011.

Single family home sales also declined falling 1.4% from November but still rising 11.5% above the level seen in December 2011 while the median selling price increased a notable 10.9% above the level seen a year earlier.

Inventory of single family homes declined notably from November to 1.60 million units dropping 21.2% below the level seen in December 2011 which, along with the sales pace, resulted in a monthly supply of 4.4 months.

The following charts (click for full-screen dynamic version) shows national existing single family home sales, median home prices, inventory and months of supply since 2005.

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index: December 2012

The latest release of the Chicago Federal Reserve National Activity Index (CFNAI) indicated a weakening for the national economy with the index falling to a very low growth level of 0.02 from a notably weak level of -.27 in November while the three month moving average improved slightly to a weak level of -0.11.

The CFNAI is a weighted average of 85 indicators of national economic activity collected into four overall categories of “production and income”, “employment, unemployment and income”, “personal consumption and housing” and “sales, orders and inventories”.

The Chicago Fed regards a value of zero for the total index as indicating that the national economy is expanding at its historical trend rate while a negative value indicates below average growth.

A value at or below -0.70 for the three month moving average of the national activity index (CFNAI-MA3) indicates that the national economy has either just entered or continues in recession.