Welcome to the first blog of 2018, Mortgage Fans! As always this blog is intended to inform you about the mortgage world as well as make you think, laugh, and cry. Mostly cry because some of my jokes are pretty bad. Okay, let’s hit it:
New Year’s Resolution Quote of the Day: “My New Year’s resolution is to be more assertive if that’s okay with you guys?” – @megankcomedy
This Week in Economic History: It was this week in 1877 that railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt died. His estimated worth of $100 million made him at the time the richest person in the United States. Cornelius had a son (Reginald) who had a daughter Gloria Vanderbilt and she added to the family wealth by designing and marketing Jordache jeans. Years later Gloria had a son Anderson Cooper who has gone on to…. Wait… What’s that, Mortgage Fans? You want to see a Jordache jeans commercial from 1979? Not sure why you’d want to punish yourself like this but okay, here you go.
Wuss’up This Week: Every day reports about our economy are released into the wild that can sway interest rates in either direction. Today we’ve got the very important ISM Mfg Index (no clue what that is…), tomorrow ADP Employment report in conjunction with Jobless Claims, and on Friday the biggest report of the month – Employment Numbers for December. 190k new jobs is the expected number – anything better than that can cause rates to go up, and vice-versa if the number comes in lower.
Interest rates for 2018 are leading off where they spent most of 2017. You’ll find 30-year fixed rates in the high-3s/low-4s, with ARM rates about a half a point lower. As usual rates will vary based on type of home, equity in the home, your credit score, or your interest in facts about 2017’s most googled movies.
New Year’s Resolution Quote of the Day 2: “My New Year’s resolution is that this year I’ll be a whole new and better person – more specifically Dwayne The Rock Johnson.” – @jenkirkman
Timeout for Trivia: Congrats to those who guessed Jonah Hill on the last trivia question of 2017. Want to be entered into a drawing to win a Flaming Wallet Magic Trick? Simply email me the answer to today’s Who Am I? question. Good luck: “It’s my birthday today, and the author of this blog would’ve picked someone else if someone else as famous was born on this date. I used to be likable – especially in the late 80s when I starred as a cop (my partner in those movies hated the Amish in another movie) in a bunch of movies that CBS recently rebooted into a TV show. So when did people start to hate me? Who the hell knows, but maybe it’s ironic that in real life I’ve been mad at cops while in the movies I’ve been a mad cop.”
