A personal piece

I know I have written before that I have been told numerous times that my blog needs to be more "personal." Fortunately, I have been so busy lately that I haven't had a chance to blog about all the awesome things that have been happen in my day to day life. The last few weeks have been a whirl wind and it feels awesome.

Last week, I had an awesome 'Quality of Life' day with my leadership class. Our day started out at the Elloree Museum, then we headed to the Fish-Eagle tour on Santee, ate a delicious lunch at Lone Star BBQ, enjoyed a tour around the Orangeburg Gardens, and ended the day at the golf coarse at the Orangeburg Country Club. Whew - a lot of fun things to do around Orangeburg!!

Here are some snap shots:

 

I have been licensed for mortgage loans for a little over 2 months. For the first few weeks, I worked hard on leads and securing some promising loans. Over the last few weeks, these first loans have come to a close. IT IS AWESOME!! The closings are coming fast and I couldn't be more excited for all of this hard work to pay off. A couple of weeks ago, I had my first closing. It went really well. Rodney was a total sweetheart and had this on my desk when I got back to the office:

 



He is great about making everything exciting in my career into a CELEBRATION!! I loved it. He also sent out a mass email to let everyone know that I closed my first loan. The responses were AMAZING!! I had some awesome facebook posts on my personal account. They made my day. I also received many emails congratulating me on my hard work. I wanted to share a few:

CONGRATULATION!  CAROLINE  -  KEEP UP THE STELLAR WORK- 

 

This is great!  CONGRATULATIONS Caroline!  I have shared this with my team and we couldn’t be more excited.

 

 

 

tell her way to go.  she is a worker.

Congratulations to Caroline!  Now, go get a nice photograph made while you still have hair and sanity.  Welcome to the business, it will serve you well.

 

She did a wonderful job and I will recommend her highly.

Thanks for the continued daily follow up and the perseverance.

 

 

Awesome job! Congratulations….first of many!

Those were just some of the "fun" ones.

This move into the mortgage career has been such a blessing. I was nervous about getting to know people in the industry and winning over their confidence and trust. It is like I have been adopted into some sort of industry family, full of Realtors, Appraisers, Insurance Agents, Attorneys, and even other mortgage lenders. Everyone has been so supportive and I couldn't be more grateful for that. I really look forward to getting to know everyone better.

I hope everyone reading this Blog had a wonderful Memorial Day. God Bless our military.

Caroline's Weekly Market Review

For months, investors have been focused on the question of when the Fed will begin to scale back its massive bond buying program. On Wednesday, comments from Fed Chief Bernanke and the Fed Minutes caused investors to think that the tapering may begin sooner than expected. The acknowledgment that Fed officials believe that economic growth actually could pick up quickly enough to justify a reduction in monetary stimulus was encouraging, but it was bad news for mortgage rates.

One of the primary goals of the Fed's bond buying program is to to keep mortgage rates low to stimulate the housing market and boost the economy. To this end, the Fed currently purchases the vast majority of newly issued mortgage-backed securities (MBS) each month. Since mortgage rates are mostly determined by MBS prices, this enormous demand from the Fed has helped mortgage rates decline to historically low levels. The Fed's MBS purchases will eventually end, however, and this week's Fed comments raised investor concerns that this will take place sooner than previously expected. On Wednesday, Bernanke acknowledged that there is a chance that the Fed could begin to taper its MBS purchases at one of its "next few meetings", based on economic conditions. The detailed Fed Minutes from the May 1 Fed meeting revealed that a number of Fed officials were open to scaling back the Fed's MBS purchases as early as next month, if economic growth picks up enough.

In addition, the Minutes from the last Fed meeting revealed that there is wide disagreement among Fed officials about what would constitute sufficient economic strength to cause the Fed to cut back its MBS purchases. Neither Bernanke's testimony nor the Minutes indicated that economic growth is currently strong enough to satisfy most Fed officials, making it unlikely that tapering will begin in the next couple of months. Bernanke warned that a "premature" tightening of monetary policy would risk slowing the economic recovery. The result of this uncertainty has been a high level of volatility around data releases and Fed speeches, and the volatility is likely to continue until the Fed actually announces a change in policy.

This week, revisions to first quarter GDP and Pending Home Sales will be released on Thursday. Core PCE inflation, Personal Income, and Chicago PMI Manufacturing will come out on Friday. Consumer Confidence and Consumer Sentiment will round out the Economic Calendar. In addition, there will be Treasury auctions on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Mortgage markets were closed on Monday in observance of Memorial Day.

Rose Festival Fun

A quick post about this past weekend's Rose Festival. I have been going to the Rose Festival for years. I am glad that I decided on a Saturday trip this year, because they had to shut it down on Sunday because of the weather. It was so rainy, the TandD headlined the article Water World. I did enjoy stuffing my face with Fiske Fries AND chocolate dipped cheesecake (not paleo so much).

I had a great time hanging out at the Century 21 tent. They had an awesome drawing for some plants and garden tools! I also love our new Ad this year (Thank you Chelsea Knott).

Lowest Interest Rate? Lowest Payment? Ultimate Advantage.

Not Personal Enough?

Present Market Conditions

Attributed to Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac. “The housing market is getting a boost with mortgage rates hovering at or near record lows. For instance, existing home sales averaged an annualized pace of 4.94 million over the first three months of this year, the most since the fourth quarter of 2009. More impressively, new home sales topped 424,000 during the first quarter, which was the strongest since the third quarter of 2008. The sales pickup is helping to support house-price gains. For instance, the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported that February marked the thirteenth consecutive month that it has recorded an annual rise in its U.S. house price index, which rose by 7.1 percent in the twelve months through February, the most since May 2006. Even with these gains, this U.S. index is still 13.6 percent below its peak set in April 2007."

Expectations

This week will be very busy with regards to major economic news. The Fed will be meeting Wednesday. From this meeting Investors will be looking for updates on the state of the economy and hints about the future bond buying program. Next on the agenda is the ECB meeting scheduled for Thursday. Many investors anticipate the ECB to announce a rate cut or a new stimulus program. The most important economic report this week will be the Employment data released on Friday. As always, this data shows the number of jobs, the Unemployment Rate, and wage inflation. This is the most highly anticipated economic data of the month. Prior to the employment data, the schedule will be packed with ISM Manufacturing, Core PCE inflation, Pending Home Sales, and many other reports throughout the week.

Guidance

With rates still at very low levels, the housing market is beginning to heat up. Now is the best time to meet with me, your mortgage professional, to discuss a mortgage solution to meet your financial goals.

 

 

My blogtastic friends tell me that no one wants to read my posts because they aren't "personal" enough. I am too "business." Well here is my personal note for this post: My Web Master friend Chelsea Knott talked me into starting a running program this week & then she tried to back out last night. BUT I made her go. It wasn't as bad as we anticipated. We are going to complete the program because we have each other for accountability. Posting online for everyone to see - how is that for accountability? This is kind of how we feel about it....

 

Maybe soon we will be running crazies like Charlotte Law (a blogtastic friend - check it out HERE)