Current Mortgage Rate Trends

The current mortgage rates are at record lows and have been for most of 2020. COVID-19 has a lot to do with the current trends in the market. The uncertainty in the U.S. economy as well as the unpredictable stock market has fueled the low rates.

COVID-19 added some additional cost therefore the Federal Housing Finance Agency added a 0.5% refinance fee in December 2019 on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Turn times were also affected by the pandemic. Fortunately, the current average is 42 days to close on a home loan.

September the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage with 0.8 points paid in fees was 2.87%. The 15-year fixed mortgage with 0.8 points paid was 2.35% which was a huge drop from September 2019.

Many investors have turned from stocks and put money back into bonds. This has kept the mortgage rates low and also anchored the market for new and existing home sales.

Another positive for the mortgage market is the promise for the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee to keep purchasing mortgage-backed securities. The more buyers there are in that market, the lower mortgage rates can be because the bonds underlying the loans don’t need to offer as high of a return to attract a buyer.

According to the Federal Reserve terms, they have committed to keeping short-term rates low until 2024. These rates go hand-in-hand with longer-term rates for mortgages. More than likely we will keep seeing low rates for the next couple of years.

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New Orleans’ City Park Voted Number One of the Best City Parks in America

Thrillist, an online media website under Group Nine Media, covers food, drink, travel and entertainment through cities in the United States, Canada and Europe. The media source ranked the top parks around America and New Orleans’ City Park made the list.

City Park is well known and one of the oldest urban parks in the United States. The park sits on 1,300 acres and has been a big part of the city since 1854. Generations have been coming to the park and enjoying concerts, dances and “affaires d’honneur” (gentlemanly duels). As the park’s website describes, Today’s park is home to ancient oaks, modern art and everything in between. Drop by to discover the beauty of a live performance, 160 years in the making.

The park was chosen because of all it has to offer. Among them are Storyland, Carousel Gardens, the Botanical Gardens and the New Orleans Museum of Art. There are many family-friendly events and activities that take place throughout the year. In fact, this summer the park opened the Louisiana Children’s Museum and added 6 acres to the NOMA Sculpture Garden.

Plenty of beautiful scenery is throughout the southern park. It is home to the world’s largest population of live oak trees. Many of these trees are from 750 – 900 years old. The trees are known for their unique shape and many of the trees have limbs that are twice as long as the tree is tall.

Other parks to make the list were from all across the country. The list included Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California, Falls Park in
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Gas Works Park in Seattle, Washington, Zilker Park in Austin, Texas, Dolores Park in San Francisco, California, Theodore Wirth Regional Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan, Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri, Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC, The Gathering Place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois, South Mountain Park Preserve in Phoenix, Arizona, Balboa Park in San Diego, California, Forest Park in Portland, Oregon, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California.

No wonder City Park was part of Thrillist’s 18 favorite parks. For New Orleans, the park is a great place for locals and tourists to gather and simply rest, mingle and play.

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The West Bank of New Orleans Gets a Geographers Attention

Richard Campanella, originally from Brooklyn, is a Tulane University geographer. Campanella is the author of the book “The West Bank of Greater New Orleans: A Historical Geography”. The book is based on the West Bank and is a researched account of the land, its history and its people.

This is Campanella’s 11th book and took him three years to complete. The narrative that blends geography, economics, hydrology, sociology and history, along with the stories of people like John McDonogh and the Destréhans and Harveys who were forces in its history and whose names adorn parts of it.

The 264-page book hits closer to home than one might think. Brooklyn is across the East River from Manhattan and for a while was looked down on by Manhattanites.

“There’s oftentimes this spatial elitism where the urban core looks down on the periphery, particularly when there’s a water boundary and the area is more working-class, more gritty and more industrial,” Campanella said in an interview. “I’ve come to be fascinated with areas that have been ignored.”

He discovered that New Orleanians have the same attitude toward the West Bank, which is really east of downtown across the Mississippi River. This helped with his mindset to understand this condescending attitude toward the area.

“It’s the West Bank because it’s contiguous with the western half of the nation,” he said. “It had railroad access to central Louisiana, western Louisiana, Texas and points west in ways that the East Bank did not. The West Bank was something of a jumping-off point to Texas and beyond.”

Currently, the West Bank makes up around 35% of the urbanized footprint of New Orleans metropolitan and 30% of the metropolitan population. This is a big chunk of metro New Orleans population south of Lake Pontchartrain.
The area has been deemed the “red-headed stepchild,” but the West Bank plays a vital role in the city across the river. The West Bank is where those that keep New Orleans running live.

“The West Banks of the world are separate yet near their urban cores, apart yet convenient, a spacious counterpart to inner-city crowding and costs,” he writes.

The West Bank of New Orleans’ proximity also plays a part in the separation felt by so many. The Mississippi River is so wide that the East and West banks were originally made to develop and run on their own independent of each other. Campanella goes on to explain that the differences in communities stayed once bridges were built across the Mississippi.

Today, the West Bank is a great place to live “outside the limelight”. It is a place where those who seek it can live affordably and call New Orleans their home.

“I hope this book begins to balance out the disproportion in the scholarly coverage of New Orleans,” he said.

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A Jump In Homebuyer Traffic

Even with the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has seen a lot of upticks in the residential real estate market. In fact, Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), believes that the sales will be higher this year than they were last year. His prediction for next year forecasts an 8 – 12% increase in home sales.

According to ShowingTime which is used by Realtors to track showings, home buyer traffic jumped again in July, recording a 60.7 percent year-over-year increase in nationwide showing activity.

Traffic was up in each region of the U.S. The Northeast saw the biggest increase at 76.6%, the West at 56.7%, Midwest saw an uptick by 52.1% and the South was up 46.7%. Approximately 60% more buyers are out there looking for a home than this same time last year. This indicates that the market has already rebounded from the downturn it faced during the pandemic’s shelter-in-place orders.

“On an aggregated level, the housing economy remains rock solid despite the shock and awe of the pandemic,” noted Frank Martell, President and CEO of CoreLogic.

Now is a great time to sell or purchase a new home. If you are in the market, call a Realtor who can get the best price for both the sale and purchase of a new home.

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New RTA Ferry Between Canal Street and Algiers Point

A new ferry called the RTA 2 took its maiden voyage on October 10, 2020, after two years of delays. Passengers will be taken on the Missississippi River between Algiers Point and Canal Street.

The RTA 1, RTA 2 and another aluminum boat were slated to be completed in 2018. The vessels were completed on time however did not pass a series of Coast Guard inspections. A feud ensued between RTA and the manufacturer that took two years to negotiate.

The RTA 2 is a much-welcomed site at the Algiers Point-Canal Street route which did not have any ferry service for three months last year. The ferries that serviced the route for 40 years had such high repair costs that they were frequently left out of service.

According to the Regional Transit Authority (RTA), the boat is environmentally greener and more fuel-efficient than its predecessors. Marine fuel is known to emit nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides into the air when burning in combustion engines. The RTA 2 releases lower levels of nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides which are the main pollutants caused by marine boats.

The aluminum catamaran-style boat allows for a faster, calmer journey. Passenger Christina Burrle says the ferry does not rock up and down.  She goes on to describe the experience as a smooth relaxing ride.

Guiding the ferry straight across the river might seem like a simple task, deckhand Joshua Burris said. “But it takes a lot of technique, practice and great ship-handling capabilities when you get high river stages and the currents start moving at five, six, seven, eight knots. You can catch yourself in an eddy, kind of like a blender, and you can flip yourself all the way around.”

So far passengers have been pleased with the new ferry. The seats are nicer and the clean cabin offers seats with tables that look out open windows. Under each seat are life jackets stored in a nice pocket under the seat giving passengers easy access if needed. The older ferries provided one big community bin of life preservers.

“It’s only a buck each way. But often there is practically no one riding the ferry,” said the honorary mayor of Algiers, George Hubbell.

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