Get Ready for Longer Tweets

Get Ready for Longer Tweets

Twitter is giving its users more wiggle room than the social network’s current 140-character tweet limit. Starting Sept. 19, Twitter will no longer count several items in its character limits, several tech publications report.

For example, media attachments, like images, GIFs, polls, and videos – will not be counted in the limit. You’ll soon be able to post a photo with a full 140-character message next to it. Also, usernames will not be counted against the limit, allowing you to message others without having to sacrifice more characters in your message.

Twitter has been considering stretching its 140-character limit for the past year, even considering allowing users to post extensive essays. But the plans for  tweets won’t stretch that far as Twitter looks to still keep what it’s known for “short, snappy messages,” TechSpot reports.

Source: “Longer Tweets Are Coming to Twitter on September 19,” TechSpot (Sept. 13, 2016)

Post-Labor Day Uptick in Mortgage Apps

Post-Labor Day Uptick in Mortgage Apps

Home buying appears to be picking up after the Labor Day holiday, with total mortgage applications for home purchases and refinancings increasing 4.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday. This time, application volume was boosted more by home buyers than refinancers, a reversal in recent trends.

Home purchase volume rose 9 percent compared to the previous week; total volume is 8 percent higher than the same week a year ago.

“The purchase market remains supported by an improving U.S. labor market,” says Lynn Fisher, MBA’s vice president of research and economics. “Newly released data from the U.S. Census this week indicates that the median income increased by 5.2 percent last year, the highest rate of increase since 2007. Other recent but less comprehensive measures show wage growth continuing to strengthen in 2016.”

Also, a slight drop in mortgage rates may have helped bring more buyers to the table. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to a 3.67 percent average last week, MBA reports. However, rates moved higher at the end of the week and continue to inch upward this week, CNBC reports.

Source: “Mortgage Applications Jump 4.2% on Strong Buyer Demand,” CNBC (Sept. 14, 2016)

Paint Colors That Make a Room Look Bigger

Paint Colors That Make a Room Look Bigger

A room’s size is sometimes a matter of perception, and the paint color on the walls has a lot to with that perception. Some colors can actually make a room appear smaller, while other colors can make the walls expand and feel larger. Realtor.com® recently highlighted some of the paint colors to create the illusion of more space, including:

White: White reflects light, thereby making a space look brighter and feel more open. “White will make any room appear bigger and complement the natural lighting,” Than Merrill, a real estate investor and host of A&E’s “Flip This House” told realtor.com®.

Yellow: A creamy and soft yellow can also reflect light, and can create a softer alternative to white (as long as it’s not too bold of a yellow). Add white accents, such as on the trim, to add further dimension to the room.

Gray: A calming, light shade can help expand a room and, unlike white, doesn’t cast off a glare.

Monochromatic color schemes: Use a monochromatic color scheme for the entire space to open it up (in other words, stick with the white, gray or soft yellow and don’t introduce then a bolder color). “Choose rugs, furniture, and accents in similar shades – like a patterned rug in white and light gray,” realtor.com®’s article suggests. “This creates a minimalist, clean look that makes the entire space feel larger.”

Source: “What Colors Make a Room Look Bigger?” realtor.com® (Sept. 9, 2016)

Mediterranean-Style Homes Losing Appeal?

Mediterranean-Style Homes Losing Appeal?

In the 1990s, Mediterranean-style homes were all the rage. But new surveys suggest the once-popular design may be losing some of its appeal.

Mediterranean-style homes are known for stucco walls, tumbled stone, and wrought-iron accents. Asking prices for this type of home still remain high, but price growth has slowed in recent years, particularly compared to more modern color palettes and minimalist design, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Mediterranean-style homes have a median list price of $750,000—triple the amount of the median list price for homes of all other styles, according to a realtor.com® analysis. But since 2012, asking prices for the style have stayed flat while median home prices have increased 25 percent.

Notably, modern homes have seen the largest jump in median asking prices, surging 37 percent over four years. Realtor.com®’s analysis examined the four most popular architectural styles in the U.S.—Mediterranean, modern, Colonial, and Victorian.

“The relative lack of appreciation of Mediterranean homes likely results from pent-up demand for newer and more versatile styles,” Javier Vivas of realtor.com® told The Wall Street Journal. “These other styles have attracted more eyes and fiercer competition, particularly since the recovery.”

Nevertheless, Jay Kallos, an architect for luxury builder Ashton Woods, adds “good architecture always trumps in any style. A beautiful and well-designed home will always stand the test of time.”

Source: “Mediterranean-Style Homes Lose Their Luster,” The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 8, 2016) [Log-in required.]

Women Better Than Men at Paying Mortgages

Women Better Than Men at Paying Mortgages

Women are less likely than men to miss a mortgage payment, according to a new study from the Urban Institute. Yet, they tend to pay higher interest rates.

A single male borrower had a 6 percent probability of default while a comparable female-only borrower had an expected default rate of 5.8 percent, the study showed.

“This is the first step in saying the barometer is consistently not accurately predicting whether women are able to pay their mortgages,” says Sheryl Pardo, a spokesperson for the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute.

Even though women show a higher tendency to pay their mortgages on time, they tend to pay higher interest rates. Why? The study posits that women tend to get higher interest rates because they comprise a higher percentage of subprime loan borrowers and their credit profiles don’t tend to be as good as men’s.

But the study’s authors argue that lenders need to reassess predictors in determining how likely a person is to default on the loan.

Women’s predictors are lower, which suggests she’s not going to do as well, but lenders aren’t “predicting accurately,” Pardo told Credit.com. “Women do better than their characteristics say they should do. And, in fact, they perform better than men.”

Women tend to pay higher interest rates than men – 5.48 percent versus 5.41 percent, the study found. Women borrowers tend to have more debt to income, which lowers credit scores, and they tend to have less income than men ($68,000 versus $95,000 for men).

“Given that more than one-third of female-only borrowers are minorities and almost half of them live in low-income communities, we need to develop more robust and accurate measures of risk to ensure that we aren’t denying mortgages to women who are fully able to make good on their payments,” Pardo says.

Source: “Women Are Better Than Men at Paying Their Mortgages,” Credit.com (Sept. 8, 2016)

Optimism Grows Among Sellers, Buyers

Optimism Grows Among Sellers, Buyers

Consumers have a fairly optimistic 12-month outlook on housing at the end of the summer home-buying season, says Doug Duncan, chief economist at mortgage giant Fannie Mae. The optimism is being buoyed by confidence in the job market and more favorable expectations regarding their personal finances compared to a year ago.

Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index, overall, showed a slight upward trend during the spring and summer of this year. That falls in line “with our forecast, which calls for 4 percent growth in home sales in 2016 to the best level since 2006 and continued improvement for 2017,” Duncan says.

Fannie’s HPSI dropped 1.5 points in August but is up 4.2 points compared to a year ago. Four of the six HPSI components dropped last month, with the share of consumers who expect home prices to go up in the next 12 months and those who say now is a good time to sell seeing a 6 and 5 percentage point, respectively, decrease in August.

However, more consumers are reporting a positive employment outlook from the previous month, up 4 percentage points month-over-month in August.

For the third consecutive month, the share of Americans who say now is a good time to buy a home rose 1 percentage point to 34 percent in August. The share of Americans who say now is a good time to sell dropped 5 percentage points from an all-time survey high in July to 15 percent.

The share of Americans who say they are not concerned with losing their job increased 4 percentage points to 73 percent.

Source: Fannie Mae