December Thoughts

Merry Christmas!

With December we are now really starting to experience some rain. While I’m thankful for the water….I’d be happier if it rained on my neighbor’s property more and mine less. The mud is a real pain. On the other hand the Martin Valley Yachting Club had their first in what promises to be a wonderful series of races.

Last summer Joann saw little wooden sailboat kits for sale at Target and picked up several of them. Then when the rains started a few weeks ago pulled them out for a rainy afternoon project. So sure enough last Thursday when it was pouring rain and we had a good runoff going she picked up the kids after work and the boat races began. It was all fun and games, even when you had to empty your boots out from when the water got too deep.

I remember doing this as a kid in the creek next to the house where I grew up. I still remember going in the house, taking a hot shower, then sitting by the fire with a cup of cocoa to warm up and dry out.

In the mortgage business it’s one of those times when a butterfly flaps it’s wings in Brazil causing a rainstorm in the mid-west.  With the falling price of crude oil (my truck is very happy) investors are worried about the profits in the energy sector of the stock market, this is causing a flight to the bond market which in turn results in lower interest rates. It’s actually a little more complicated, but that’s the basics. The net result is that mortgage rates are now at the low for the year, and you have to go back to May 2013 to match the current rates. If your mortgage rate is higher than about 4.5% it’s probably a good time to refinance (30yr mortgage).

So did you solve last month’s math quiz?

Nick and Dave are rewiring a very large house.  Nick is a master electrician and can sometimes work alone.  Dave is the assistant and only works in a team.  Nick makes $150 per day (non-NYC rates, obviously) while Dave makes $30 less.  When they finished the job, the total labor cost was $2,190.  How many days did each work?  (No fractional days.)

—Answer: Nick worked 9 days, Dave worked 7 or Nick worked 13 days and Dave worked 2.

Today’s Question – Late for Thanksgiving dinner, Bob called the baker to see how many pumpkin pies he had left.  The overworked baker snapped – “I have 3/4’s of the total plus 3/4’s of one pie.”  Assuming he sold only whole pies, how many did he have?
Drop me an email with your answer.

Here is some local real estate information. Morgan Hill actually saw a significant month of month reduction in median price, but still up over 12 months ago.

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Morgan Hill median list prices for Dec. 16th, 2014

• Median List price. $889,000 down from 969,500 in November.
• Median List price is up 11% over a year ago
• Average time listed is up to 77 days, in part to time of year
• 65 total homes listed, 5 condo’s and 60 single familes
• Median house size 2,535

This includes condo’s and single family homes. Data pulled from Movoto.com

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Mortgage interest rates are about flat from a month ago and sitting near the 52 week lows per mortgagenewsdaily.com pls note most of these rates shown are with borrower paying an typically 1.0 point in fees.