There's a whole lot of moving and shaking going on today on Capitol Hill. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke continues his testimony before Congress, and is under a lot of pressure, as many of the Senators are questioning some of his past action, and future plans. Many of the Senators, Democrats and Republicans alike are questioning his prior handling of this financial crisis, his failure to act in a timely manner to avert this crisis, his balking at independent audits of his actions, and his apparent belief that the Feds should have even more power than they have now. Wow!
The upshot of all this turmoil, along with some less than stellar earnings reports, is that Wall Street is more than a little anxious today. For the first day in the last eight days, the DOW is taking a break, down 45 points from the high reached yesterday. The NASDAQ is still up though, on the back of some great earnings from companies like Apple. Technology companies, in general seem to be weathering this economic downturn better than financial institutions. They are not subject to foreclosures, charge offs on credit cards, etc. However, their sales are also down due to less consumer spending.
When Wall Street gets nervous, mortgage rates tend to benefit, and that is the case today. As investors sell off stocks and buy bonds, mortgage rates do well. There is very little change from the close of business, as regards mortgage rates today, but no news is good news. We saw rates drop substantially yesterday, close to the lows we saw earlier this year.
For a snapshot of where the Portland market is now, please take a look at Trulia.com. This is a great website to watch market trends in the Portland metro area, or any other major city in the country. I think you'll be surprised to see that the average listing price in the Portland metro area is $429,051 (which is UP 0.1%), while the median sales price is $264,000 (down 9.6% from this time last year). The most popular areas are those closest in to downtown Portland. There is lots more great information, so check out the link above. The information on this site is updated daily.
Best regards
Shelby Bateson
www.shelbytncmortgage.com
http://www.examiner.com/x-17460-Portland-Real-Estate-Examiner
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