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Welcome to B4 The Bell! Rates rise, mortgages fall (I wonder what Doc will say about this!
):Rates Rise, Changing Face of Home Sales
By JENNIFER BAYOT
Published: May 20, 2004
As mortgage rates climb, fewer home owners are refinancing their old loans, and potential purchasers are reconsidering when - or whether - to buy. Their choices could reshape the housing market ahead, economists said, and even affect other spending decisions.
Refinancings, which accounted for more than half of all the home loans last year, are shrinking fast. After three years of easily switching to better terms on their mortgages and frequently taking out cash, consumers can no longer rely so heavily on refinancing to shore up their family budgets and maintain their spending.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said yesterday that refinancing activity fell 17 percent last week to its lowest level since the start of the year, as the standard 30-year mortgage rate has risen to 6.2 percent since flirting with 45-year lows in mid-March. In the intervening weeks, refinancing activity has fallen almost two-thirds.
"What consumers are seeing for the first time is a rapid rise in rates," said Anthony Meola, executive vice president for home loans production at Washington Mutual, a big servicer of home loans.
The sharp appreciation in home prices that consumers have come to rely on for household wealth will probably diminish if rates continue to rise, though the National Association of Realtors estimates that the 30-year rate would have to rise to 8 percent to seriously impede home sales. Rising rates make homes more expensive for consumers and will damp total home sales and home prices.
http://www.nytimes.c...ess/20rate.html
No more cement pools:
Cement Shortages Posing Threat to Boom
May 20, 2004: 6:08 AM EDT
The construction boom in the U.S. faces a potentially serious new threat from cement shortages, which began a month ago in Florida and are spreading to other states, Thursday's Wall Street Journal reported.
Florida's shortfall has already forced contractors to lay off workers because they can't get cement to make concrete for jobs. Other fast-growing states also depend to a great extent on imports, and industry officials note shortages in parts of South Carolina, Texas and Louisiana.
Industry officials say China's own building boom is indirectly to blame for the current shortages. China, the world's biggest producer of cement, isn't gobbling up cement destined for the U.S., but Chinese contractors have tied up global shipping lines for transport of other building materials. So there aren't enough ships to haul cement to U.S. ports from major exporters like Colombia and Thailand.
http://money.cnn.com...t_shortages.dj/
When the last oil well runs dry:
Sunset industry? Oil production could soon peak
Just as certain as death and taxes is the knowledge that we shall one day be forced to learn to live without oil.
Exactly when that day will dawn nobody knows, but people in middle age today can probably expect to be here for it.
http://news.bbc.co.u...ure/3623549.stm
Finally, stock market storm warnings are still up. Hang on bears.
MultiQuote
(since I have been forecasting and tracking this in the Moguage report every week for the past year.)
