Monthly Archives: February 2023

Housing Market Is Recovering

Posted on February 28, 2023 by Popular Economics Weekly

The Mortgage Corner Census.gov Real estate is the industry most affected by rising interest rates, so it’s encouraging to see that housing sales are showing signs of a revival. Both new-home and pending home sales jumped in January, even with … Continue reading →

Posted in Consumers, COVID-19, Economy, Housing, housing market, Weekly Financial News | 1 Comment

Chapter Eleven – Building a Livable Community

Posted on February 27, 2023 by Popular Economics Weekly

Old Town’s Revival In revitalizing Goleta’s Old Town District, we realized our efforts might apply to a livable city as well.  As recently as 2005, the Institute of American Architects defined such a community as. . . “broadly speaking, a livable community … Continue reading →

Posted in Consumers, Economy, Housing, Politics, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Consumer Incomes/Sentiment Still Rising

Posted on February 25, 2023 by Popular Economics Weekly

Financial FAQs BEA.gov January consumer spending rose 1.8 percent (orange bar in graph) in a month, while personal incomes rose 0.6 percent in the BEA’s latest personal income (PCE) report out Friday. This is one more headache for the Fed … Continue reading →

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Q4 Growth Continues

Posted on February 24, 2023 by Popular Economics Weekly

BEAgdp Last year is ending in better shape than it began. Instead of shrinking in the first two quarters of 2022, US GDP growth has turned positive in Q3 and Q4, as portrayed in the above graph of real, or … Continue reading →

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Building Community Answering Kennedy’s Call Book Review

Posted on February 22, 2023 by Popular Economics Weekly

Amazon.com Building Community, Answering Kennedy’s Call by Harlan Russell Green A Peace Corps Writers Book, 2022. This memoir will take members of ERFSA back to the “good old days” when you might have been protesting the war in Vietnam or … Continue reading →

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Will It Be a Soft Landing?

Posted on February 20, 2023 by Popular Economics Weekly

The Mortgage Corner There is a growing optimism Jerome Powell’s Fed can engineer a so-called soft landing with its restrictive monetary policies, which means avoid an outright recession. Why? First quarter 2023 GDP growth is predicted to be positive following … Continue reading →

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Retail Sales Show Rising Abundance

Posted on February 15, 2023 by Popular Economics Weekly

Popular Economics Weekly FREDretailsales Now we have retail sales also surging in January, on the heels of a terrific unemployment report and Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimate of higher first quarter economic growth. Retail sales that make up half of consumer … Continue reading →

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New Year GDP Looking Better

Posted on February 14, 2023 by Popular Economics Weekly

Financial FAQs AtlantaFedGDPNow Because of January’s gangbusters unemployment report of 517,000 new payroll jobs and the unemployment rate decline to an all-time low of 3.4 percent, consensus is growing that the US may avoid a recession. One indicator of a … Continue reading →

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What Interest Rates Are Declining?

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Popular Economics Weekly

The Mortgage Corner FRED30yr The average 30-year fixed rate conforming mortgage has declined almost one percent since November 2022 to the current 6.12 percent as of February 2023, per the St. Louis Fed. The housing sector has been a leading … Continue reading →

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To A Better State of the Union

Posted on February 6, 2023 by Popular Economics Weekly

Financial FAQs Reuters Reuters just reported that U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday said she saw a path for avoiding a U.S. recession, with inflation coming down significantly and the economy remaining strong, given the strength of the U.S. … Continue reading →

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