Financial Markets

The Dow closed Friday at 15,570, up 1.1% for the week and just 150 points away from its all time high.  Stocks have risen 3 weeks straight as earnings season continues to impress investors.  In atypical fashion, mortgage backed securities have also rallied during the same period, improving another 100 basis points over the past two weeks, with 30 yr fixed mortgage rates now in the low 4’s.  In completely unimportant and unrelated news, Twitter is primed to go public and the initial IPO is projected to open for anywhere from $17-$20 per share.  

Southern Nevada Real Estate Related Data

The Las Vegas real estate market continues to be the hotbed of discussion for real estate analysts nationwide.  Generally speaking, Las Vegas led the nation on the way up in appreciation during the housing bubble, led the nation on the way down during the bubble-burst, and now leads the nation again in appreciation on the recovery.  The debate rages on if the recovery is simply a over-due correction to an over-correction, or if it is another bubble in the making with shadow inventory potentially looming.  What is agree-able by most analysts, is that the current median price of homes are in more alignment with average house-hold incomes than during the bubble or the bust.  New home construction is much more aligned with the population growth as well. I Below is Sales Traq’s most recent release which presents great real estate data as always.  http://salestraq.com/ff/fastfacts-a3l5.pdf

Below is a video clip from Channel 13 regarding the most recent discussions to move the Mets’ AAA affiliate baseball team, 51’s, to Summerlin.  http://www.jrn.com/ktnv/news/201992581.html
 

How does the Government Shut-down affect mortgage financing??

It doesn’t, fugghedaboowwd-eht……Actually processing 4506-T’s, which is where the lender gets the borrower’s tax returns directly from the IRS will be delayed, but lenders are working on getting temporary waivers for this.  The same goes for verifying social security numbers but if the borrower provides a copy of their social security card than this can be side-stepped as well. 

Financial Markets
The Dow ended Friday up over 100 pts, just a day after a 300 point gain.  The primary catalyst for the move is word that the political stalemate in Washington over the government shutdown may be nearing an end.  As a nice change of pace, mortgage rates have remained flat the past two weeks, providing for a calm interest rate environment for consumers.   Check out this funny You-Tube clip, basically dumbing-down the debt ceiling debate.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li0no7O9zmE

Southern Nevada Real Estate Related Data
Notice of Defaults for Clark County are getting filed at an unprecedented clip and it appears  the long awaited “shadow inventory” is about to crash the housing-appreciation party.  Realty Trac reported 1,000 NOD’s on September 30^th alone.  The one day tally was attributed to a law change on October 1^st, and is not considered to be a trend, but we can certainly expect more activity than what we have seen the past 18 months.  Filings are up 36% from 3^rd quarter 2012 to 3^rd quarter 2013. 

http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/housing/housing-default-activity-shifts-high-gear-clark-county-and-nevada

Not so coincidentally, the median priced home for September 2013 dropped 1.1%, down from $182,000 to $180,000, but up nearly 30% from September 2012.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas-housing-recovery-stalls-after-19-months

For more real estate financing information, please visit my website: http://www.matthewtmaltese.com/home.html