Demand for purchase loans picked up at the end of March to the highest level of the year, while mortgage rates were mostly unchanged this week, according to surveys by the Mortgage Bankers Association and Freddie Mac.

The MBA’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey showed demand for purchase loans grew a seasonally adjusted 6.7 percent during the week ending April 1 when compared to the week before.

Looking back a year, purchase loan demand was down 16.8 percent, relatively low by historical standards at levels last seen in 1997, said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s Vice President of Research and Economics.

Fratantoni said last week’s increase in purchase loan demand was due to a sharp increase in applications in government loans, likely due to a scheduled increase in FHA insurance premiums. Demand for government-backed loans (by the Federal Housing Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. Department of Agriculture) surged a seasonally adjusted 10.3 percent, to the highest level since May 7, 2010.

With the pool of borrowers who have both the incentive and the ability to qualify for a refinance continuing to shrink, requests for refinancings accounted for 61.2 percent of all mortgage applications, down from 64.3 percent the week before and the lowest share since May 7, 2010.

Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey showed rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaging 4.87 percent with an average 0.7 point this week, up slightly from 4.86 percent last week but down from 5.21 percent a year ago. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit an all-time low in Freddie Mac records dating to 1971 of 4.17 percent during the week ending Nov. 11.

Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.1 percent with an average 0.7 point, up from 4.09 last week but down from 4.52 percent a year ago. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage hit a low in records dating back to 1991 of 3.57 percent in November.

For 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) loans, rates averaged 3.72 percent with an average 0.6 point, up from 3.7 percent last week but down from 4.25 percent a year ago. The 5-year ARM hit a low in records dating to 2005 of 3.25 percent in November.

Rates on 1-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 3.22 percent with an average 0.7 point, down from 3.26 percent last week and 4.14 percent a year ago.

Those rates are for borrowers with good credit making 20 percent down payments. Borrowers making smaller down payments or taking out loans too large or risky to be backed by Freddie Mac can expect to pay more.

MBA economists expect rates on 30-year fixed-rate loans will average 5 percent during the first half of this year, rising to an average of 5.3 percent in the third quarter and 5.5 percent in the final three months of 2011.

In a March 15 forecast, MBA economists predicted that rates on 30-year fixed-rate loans will continue a gradual rise next year, climbing to an average of 6.2 percent in the final three months of 2012.

  

I recently caught up with Pam O’Connor, the President and CEO of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, which is a global real estate network with membership from about 600 independent real estate firms.

Pam recapped some of the hot topics from the network’s annual conference, held last month in Las Vegas.

The following are excerpts from my Q-and-A with O’Connor.

Q: Can you discuss some of the highlights of the conference?

A: We used video to share examples of how members engage, innovate and lead, and our speakers focused on these strategies as well. (Speakers) covered the gamut on ways to engage both consumers and agents … addressed concepts and processes to foster innovation and … shared leadership best practices. Former White House adviser, economist and author Todd Buchholz provide insights on the global economy and political landscape as they relate to our business.

You spend a lot of time creating a

great looking, information-filled email marketing campaign. You send it out to your recipients and within 48 hours you see your response rates start to slow down. That's natural, email response happens so fast that's why we love it! But there are ways you can extend the life of your email campaign so that work you put into it gets even more views and potentially more response!

Create a Hosted Version

Sometimes your recipients won't be able to view your email in their email reader. Why? Some email readers strip out the images you've included, some only allow for certain sizes of emails to be viewed, and some people are reading your email on a mobile phone which always has its challenges.

The easy answer to this? A hosted version of your email marketing campaign. Make sure that any Email Service Provider (ESP) you use offers a "hosted version" option of your email campaign. This is simply the email you've created hosted on a web page. Your ESP should offer an easy way to insert a link that has been automagically created anywhere in your email.

Share on Facebook

Now that you have your hosted version of your email campaign, you can post the link of the email to your Facebook page. This will get your email in front of different viewers that may not be on your email list and it's an opportunity to try to get someone ON your email list.

Share on Twitter

It's no secret that there might be some ov

erlap of your email lists and your Twitter followers,  but what about those who aren't on your email list? You can Tweet the subject line of your email to your Twitter followers and include a link to the hosted version. This way your up-to-the-minute followers know about the news and new deals you might have.

Create an Email Archive

You can use the hosted versions of all of your email campaigns and create your very own email newsletter archive. Simply take all of the links of your hosted emails and put them on a page on your website. You might want to name each campaign with your subject line and the date that you sent it. Then you can include the email archive link on the footer of your website and in all of your email marketing campaigns in case someone missed one!

Ask them to Opt In

In all of your email marketing campaigns you should include a link asking people to opt in to receiving these newsletters. "But Janine, if I'm sending my campaigns TO my customers why would I do that?" Great question! Three reasons; 1) your recipients may forward your email to their friends via email, 2) your recipients might share your email with THEIR social networks, and 3) when new viewers visit to the hosted version, there is an opportunity for them to sign up.

So there you have it. Are you extending the life of your email campaigns and if fo how?

Related Posts:

Create an Archived Version of Your Newsletter
3 Ways to Make Your Email More Social

Monday, March 14, 2011

Five years ago this week, a small team of people started working on a prototype of the service that we now know as Twitter. On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey (@jack) sent the first Tweet.

Today, on every measure of growth and engagement, Twitter is growing at a record pace. Here are some numbers:

#tweets

• 3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet.
• 1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets.
• 50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago.
• 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month.
• 177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011.
• 456. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time).
• 6,939. Current TPS record, set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day.

#accounts

• 572,000. Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011.
• 460,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month.
• 182%. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year.

#employees

• 8. 29. 130. 350. 400. Number of Twitter employees in Jan 2008, Jan 2009, Jan 2010, Jan 2011 and today.

Posted by @ at 11:38 AM

Top 3 Ways At #WINNING On Twitter

by Suzanne on Mar 10th, 2011
in Tags: #winning, hashtag, Hootsuite, HootSuite Training, top ways to use twitter, Twitter, twitter account, Twitter tips, twitter tips for a realtor, ways to use twitter
Posted in Random, Social Media, Twitter