The Casey Condominiums is ideally located in the heart of the Pearl. Just steps from award-winning restaurants, bars, shops, art galleries, and the city, it is the perfect place to call home.

• Powell’s City of Books is .2 miles away

• Portland Center Stage at the Armory is .5 miles away

• Blick Art Supplies is .1 miles away

• Tasty n Alder is .5 miles away

• French Quarter Linens is .2 miles away

By Clare Trapasso | June 11, 2020

Anyone who's planning to buy a home, or thinking about refinancing the loan on their current abode, has probably been giving mortgage interest rates a lot of attention—and getting frustrated as they fluctuate up and down.

The average interest rate for the most common type of loan hit a new all-time low of 2.94% on Thursday, according to Mortgage News Daily. That's for a fixed-rate 30-year loan. While that's great news for borrowers, who can potentially save hundreds of dollars a month as a result, rates may not stay below 3% for long.

Mortgage rates have been all over the place, falling after the coronavirus pandemic threw the nation's economy into turmoil, then rising temporarily as lenders were deluged by a tsunami of refinance applications. Last week, they were on the upswing again, climbing to 3.24% on Friday, after May's unemployment report showed the economy was recovering.The most recent plunge comes thanks to the U.S. Federal Reserve making an announcement on Wednesday that drove investors back into mortgage bonds, which drove rates back down.

"Rates have changed rapidly over the past [few] days," says Matthew Graham, chief operating officer of Mortgage News Daily. "For the first time ever, the average best-case-scenario rate on a conventional, 30-year fixed-rate [loan] is under 3%. Most lenders are able to quote 2.875%."

But he cautions that these ultralow rates are reserved for borrowers with "flawless credit, more than 20% equity, and no other additional risk factors."

Folks don't quite need a finance degree to understand what's going on—but it sure wouldn't hurt.

Lenders typically don't like to hold on to the mortgages they make, as it ties up cash that could be used to make new loans. So they sell the loans, which are bundled into a collection of mortgage-backed securities (aka mortgage bonds), in the secondary mortgage market. These securities are similar to U.S. Treasury bonds—they're viewed as safer, yet less lucrative, investments than the stock market.

When the economy is strong, investors often prefer to sink their money into stocks, where they hope to get better returns, and when it's weaker, they'll often turn to bonds. When the unemployment numbers came out, investors were encouraged by the better-than-expected unemployment rate. Many moved money out of Treasury and mortgage bonds and into the stock market.

Since mortgage rates move in the opposite direction of bond prices, when bond prices fall, mortgage rates go up—and vice versa. That's what happened on Friday.

However, on Monday the National Bureau of Economic Research declared the U.S. had officially entered a recession in February. That spooked investors, who suddenly rediscovered the appeal of boring but stable bonds.

Then the Fed announced it would continue to purchase mortgage bonds in the secondary market. The move was designed to keep the market strong—and brought investors back to mortgage bonds. When demand rises, so do bond prices. Hence, mortgage rates fell.

Whether mortgage rates will stay below 3% is anyone's guess. It will likely depend on the strength of the economy, how quickly a coronavirus vaccine becomes available, and a whole host of still unknown factors.

“Mortgage rates move up and down all the time," says realtor.com Senior Economist George Ratiu. "I expect for the rest of the year that they’ll bounce around the 3% to 3.5% range.”

As a full time real estate principal broker for 28 years, I have been through many market changes. The downturn of 1987, the shock of 9/11, the housing boom of the 2000’s, the Economic Recession of 2008, as well as the fast paced market of the last five years. Home ownership is an essential need for most people. I don’t have a crystal ball but I do know that this “particular moment in time” will pass and we will be back to our normal, healthy real estate market in the Portland area soon.

Take care.

Mj

By Will Parker | January 28, 2020

Home-price growth accelerated in November, in the latest sign the home-sales market is picking up steam after a slow start to 2019.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the nation, rose 3.5% in the 12 months to November, up from a 3.2% annual pace the prior month.

After a long period of price deceleration, if the current pace of price growth continues, it could offset some of the decreased costs home buyers are otherwise seeing with low mortgage-interest rates.

For more information on the current real estate market click here.

Photos by Amy Berry, River Spencer and Becky Boyle

By Emma Bazilian, House Beautiful

Dallas-based designer Amy Berry says she's seeing more and more of her own young clientele returning to old-school design. “After watching everybody do neutral, transitional rooms for so long, we’ve had several younger clients come to us in the past year asking for things like chintz and treillage and bright colors, and I’m thrilled about it,” says Berry, who opened her own shop, Amy Berry Home, last December. “It’s been surprising to see the types of things our twenty- and thirty-something customers are going crazy for—Fermoie pleated lamp shades, botanical prints, framed Gracie wallcovering panels we can’t keep in stock.”

While grandmillennials point to social media as a cause of the design monotony they're seeking to upend, it's also true that those same platforms have played a crucial role in helping the movement grow and flourish. Consider the recent renaissance of needlepointing—one of the granniest of all hobbies—among the IG set. To read the full article on this new (but old) trend click here.

By Caroline Alkire, HGTV

Chipper Hatter

The news is in! Pantone’s 2020 Color of the Year is Classic Blue (19-4052) — a rich, dreamy, dark, beautiful shade of azure — and we’re just basking in the wonderful simplicity of it all.

In case you didn’t know, Pantone Color Institute is the go-to source when it comes to color. Pantone experts study global culture and societal trends looking for color influences that will affect home design, fashion, textures and more. To read the full article click here >>> https://bit.ly/2RxZaeE