The following is the text of the Federal Reserve Board’s Second District– New York.

The Second District’s economy has strengthened further since the last report. Firms in various industries report widespread increases in input prices and some increases in selling prices, while retail prices are generally reported to be stable. Labor market conditions improved moderately, with increased hiring reported in a number of industries. Retail sales were robust in February and March, with particular strength in auto sales. Consumer confidence has been mixed but generally steady since the last report. Tourism activity rebounded somewhat in March, after weakening modestly in February. Commercial real estate markets have been mixed. Housing markets have been generally stable, with relative strength at the lower end of the market. Finally, bankers report some weakening in household loan demand, and a moderate increase in delinquencies on commercial and industrial loans.

Consumer Spending

Retailers generally report strong results for February and March. One major retail chain notes that sales were ahead of plan in February and March, while another describes sales as on plan. Two major malls in western New York State also characterize sales as steady and strong, continuing to be buoyed by a flow of Canadian shoppers. A number of retail contacts note that, due to the later Easter this year, sales were modestly lower in March than a year earlier, but this effect is expected to be reversed in April. Unseasonably cool weather was not considered a major factor. Two major retail chains note that New York City under- performed the rest of the region in terms of sales growth last month. Inventories are generally reported to be at desired levels, and prices are reported to be stable, though one large retailer notes that it is testing out price increases on certain lines of merchandise. Auto dealers in upstate New York–metropolitan Rochester and Buffalo–characterize sales of new vehicles as exceptionally strong since the last report. Sales of used cars were also relatively robust, and dealers report that business at service departments remains brisk. Retail credit conditions continued to improve.

Confidence surveys have given mixed results since the last report. Siena College’s survey of New York State residents shows consumer confidence among NY State residents leveling off in March, after falling in February. The Conference Board reports that residents of the Middle Atlantic states (NY, NJ, Pa) became considerably less confident about the near-term outlook, in March, but that their assessment of current conditions improved for the 4th straight month. Tourism activity in New York City picked up again in March, after slowing somewhat in February. Occupancy rates at Manhattan hotels moved up noticeably in March, and the number of occupied rooms was up modestly from a year earlier. Hotel revenues, which had slipped below comparable 2010 levels in February, rebounded in March. Attendance and revenues at Broadway theaters also slipped in February but rebounded above year-earlier levels in March.

Construction and Real Estate

Housing markets across the District have been generally stable since the last report, with the lower end of the market generally performing a bit better than the higher end, and re- sales performing better than new home sales. An authority on New Jersey’s housing industry reports that market conditions remain weak: despite some uptick in resale transactions, the spring season, thus far, has been unusually slow. Brokers report that there have been more all-cash deals but also more distress sales. Sales and construction of new homes remain at exceptionally weak levels. A Buffalo-area real estate contact reports that selling prices have increased modestly from a year ago, but that sales activity has been mixed–brisk at the lower end of the market, with some sellers receiving multiple offers, but sluggish at the middle and upper ends of the market.

Activity in New York City’s co-op and condo market was generally stable in the first quarter, though the high end of the market has slowed a bit. While total activity was relatively flat versus a year ago, co-op sales rose sharply, while condo sales fell sharply. New condo units represent a smaller proportion of total apartment sales than they have in recent years. Overall, listing inventory is down roughly 5 percent from a year ago. Prices are steady in Manhattan, but continue to drift down in the other boroughs. Manhattan’s apartment rental market has picked up somewhat since the last report. Overall, rents were reported to be little changed in March, but rents on smaller (studio) apartments continued to climb and were up more than 10 percent from a year ago. Vacancy rates declined, after edging up in January and February, and the inventory of available units is described as tight.

Office markets have been mixed but generally steady across the District in the first quarter of 2011. The office vacancy rate rose moderately in Manhattan and Long Island (where it reached a multi-year high), but was little changed in Northern NJ. However, asking rents in all these areas moved up, and landlords reportedly scaled back on concessions. In the Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse areas, vacancy rates edged down, while asking rents were steady to up moderately. In Westchester and Fairfield counties and metropolitan Albany, however, office markets showed further signs of softening, as vacancy rates rose and asking rents continued to decline modestly.

Other Business Activity

Reports from business contacts suggest some broad-based improvement in the labor market. A major New York City employment agency reports a marked pickup in hiring activity in March and describes it as the best month in a number of years. The pickup has been most notable in financial and legal services but also in other areas, such as public relations and real estate. On the supply side, this contact notes that there are fewer candidates looking, and that more employed people are making moves. More generally, firms in both manufacturing and other sectors report a further pickup in both hiring activity and general business conditions in early March, and contacts remain optimistic about the near term outlook. A trucking- industry contact reports that shipping activity has picked up steadily in recent months, but that firms face rising costs from both rising energy prices and more stringent federal regulations. More broadly, firms in various industries report increasingly widespread increases in input prices, and some increase in selling prices.

Financial Developments

Bankers report decreased demand for consumer loans and residential mortgages, increased demand for commercial mortgages and no change in demand for commercial and industrial loans. The decrease was most prevalent for residential mortgages. Bankers indicate steady demand for refinancing. Respondents report no change in credit standards for consumer loans and a tightening of credit standards for the other loan categories. No banker reported an easing of credit standards in any category. Bankers report a decrease in spreads of loan rates over costs of funds for residential mortgages but no change in spreads in the other loan categories. Respondents also note a decrease in the average deposit rate. Bankers report an uptick in delinquency rates for commercial and industrial loans but no change in delinquency rates for the other loan categories.

To spark more interest in its massive holdings of foreclosed properties, Fannie Mae is offering to cover up to 3.5% of closings for homeowners who can close by June 30.

“Fannie Mae wants to help more buyers afford to purchase their new home.  That is why we are offering up to 3.5% in closing cost assistance for HomePath properties,” the GSE said on Twitter.

Through its HomePath program, Fannie provides low-downpayment financing on sales of REO properties with no requirements for mortgage insurance or appraisals. 

Fannie offered closing cost assistance during the fourth quarter of last year for the first time, but the GSE said it still ended up with an inventory of nearly 162,500 REO properties as of December 31.

In the fourth quarter, Fannie recouped 55% of the unpaid principal balance on the defaulted mortgages through the REO sales.

Fannie sells most its REO properties through HomePath, which also provides financing for second homes and investment properties. 

Buyers receiving closing cost assistance must certify that they will be owner occupants.

Daily Briefing | Wednesday, April 13, 2011

• Feds Unveil Consent Orders Against Nation’s Megaservicers — Plus Vendors LPS and MERS

  Federal banking regulators Wednesday afternoon dropped their regulatory “bomb” on the nation’s largest residential servicers — and two of their top outside vendors — accusing the firms of a “pattern of negligence and misconduct” tied to the processing of loans.

• JPM’s Mortgage Revenue Hammered in 1Q, CO About to be Sent

  JPMorgan Chase saw its mortgage-related revenue get hammered in the first quarter, falling a stunning 75% to $696 million (compared to 4Q), as originations declined and the firm focused resources on its massive servicing portfolio and dealing with legal issues tied to that business.

• JPM Mortgage Originations, Credit Losses Drop in 1Q

  Mortgage originations at JPMorgan Chase dropped 29% since the end of 2010, kicking off a year where industrywide originations are projected to drop below $1 trillion.

• CoreLogic’s New Outlook for Home Values Isn’t Exactly Pretty

  Sales of distressed properties could pull home prices down by another 10%, according to CoreLogic chief economist Mark Fleming.

• FRM Rate Rises and Apps Decline

  Mortgage application volume decreased by 6.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ended April 8 as the average rate for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose for the fourth consecutive week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

• Bank Branches Producing Fewer Mortgages

  A growing share of loans originated by banks are coming through their wholesale/correspondent channel, according to the American Bankers Association’s annual real estate lending survey.

• Sandler O’Neill Adds MBS/Fixed-Income Managing Directors

  Sandler O’Neill is adding two managing directors as well as three new sales professionals to its Chicago-based fixed-income group as part of an effort to strengthen its growing new-issue distribution of MBS and other fixed-income products.

• South Florida Foreclosures Decline but Not By Much

  For the first time in four years, the number of foreclosures has fallen in the tri-county South Florida region, according to the latest report by CondoVultures.

• Iowa AG Blasts Bank-Funded Servicer Settlement Study

  Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller blasted a study Tuesday that said proposed servicer settlement terms could cost the economy $10 billion a year.

• Georgia Leaves Fraud’s Top Ten List

  For the first time in 13 years, Georgia won’t be among the top ten states for mortgage fraud when LexisNexis releases its annual MARI fraud index on May 2.

• Canada’s Davis + Henderson Floats New Shares To Fund Mortgagebot Deal

  Davis + Henderson, Toronto, said it raised $122 million in a secondary share offering, which the financial services firm used to finance its acquisition of online mortgage origination provider Mortgagebot.

• REO Allegiance Gets Field Services Contract

  REO Allegiance has been selected by 24 Asset Management Corp. to conduct property preservation and field services.

Here are some hard numbers for the downturn in mortgage employment I wrote about last week — and they show a reduction of more than 50% in home-lending jobs since the peak of the housing and commercial real estate bubble.

The news peg for the story was mortgage goliath Wells Fargo & Co. saying it had eliminated 1,900 home-lending jobs, mostly workers hired temporarily to deal with last year's mini-boom in refinancings.

But that's nothing compared with the industry's overall decline from more than 500,000 employees in late 2005 and early 2006 to 248,000 in February, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by the Mortgage Bankers Assn.

The latest numbers are the lowest for the industry since August 1997, according to the mortgage bankers group. The data, which arrived too late to be included in last week's story, showed that employment peaked at 505,000 in February 2006.

The numbers probably overstate mortgage employment slightly, because the trade group combined the BLS categories "real estate credit" and "mortgage and nonmortgage loan brokers." But the lion's share of the jobs are related to mortgages and the downturn is dramatic.

Following up on the story, Calculated Risk posted an interesting chart showing the correlation between 30-year fixed mortgage rates and refinancings. One notable detail is how round numbers catch the attention of homeowners. Check out the giant spike in refis when the rate dipped below 6% in 2003 and the also pronounced but smaller spike when it fell below 5% in 2009.

Mortgage employment also may have been affected by new licensing requirements for employees of nonbank lenders, adopted as part of regulations cleaning up the mess from the financial crisis. The licensing has made it more expensive for these independent brokers and mortgage bankers to maintain their payrolls, people in the industry say. 

Chicago Bancorp, a large mortgage-banking firm, completed its purchase of Generations Bank, a Kansas City, Kan., savings and loan, last week to gain access to a nationwide lending market without the added licensing costs, Chicago Bancorp founder Stephen Calk told the Kansas City Star.

— E. Scott Reckard

Photo: Inland Empire homes. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

 

 

 

 

Five Platitudes That Aren’t Social Media Advice

Social media marketing is difficult.  It is.  Every campaign I’ve ever been a part of has had a unique set of challenges to overcome.  Occasionally, there’s a general lesson that can be learned from one campaign that can be applied to others, but there is rarely any one-size-fits-all piece of advice that will make or break social media success.

So when I’m writing a social media advice column, the challenge becomes a choice: specific actionable advice for few; Or general (less helpful) advice for many.  Recently, I’ve been reading a lot of fluff out there that focuses on the latter.  General truths framed as advice:  Platitudes.  And while I might even be guilty of repeating one or two of these myself, the following 5 statements, while perhaps true, aren’t all that helpful for social media marketers.

Engage

This might be the most common single word piece of advice that comes from social media marketers.  It’s the John Madden version of social media advice: it’s 100% right, and so blatantly obvious, it hardly needs to be said.

The problem is, what most companies struggle with isn’t understanding that they need to engage potential and current customers, it’s HOW to.  Depending on the company,  market demographics, campaign goals, and a number of other factors “engaging” could mean a wide variety of things.  In fact, some of the most successful social media campaigns invented their own way to “engage” their customers.

If you’re seeking social media advice for a campaign, and engaging customers isn’t already a part of your strategy, then you need stop and to go back to the drawing board.  In fact, perhaps you need to question why you’re using SOCIAL media as a marketing medium at all… Just a thought.

Telling companies to “engage” their customers for social media marketing success is like saying a football team needs to score points to win.  It isn’t advice, it’s required.

Content is King

Remember when you got sick of hearing this about SEO?  I do.  And I’ll admit: I’ve even said it a few times too!  But at least with SEO, this statement had a foundation for all search engines.  With social media, “content” can mean a great many things which can vary drastically depending on the platform.

Sure, a social media marketing campaign without content isn’t all that much of a campaign.  But not ALL social media marketing needs to be based on rich, engaging, and/or potentially viral content.  For some companies, “social media marketing” can be limited to customer interaction & networking on Twitter, or perhaps include a moderate content strategy and still reach its goals.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to downplay the impact of what great content can bring to a social media marketing campaign.  I’m NOT saying content isn’t important.  It’s just that you can repeat a phrase so much before it starts to lose all meaning; And I’m not sure it ever had one in this case.

Join the Conversation

Like the word “engage” this is one of the more common phrases associated with social media marketing, and it’s equally as ground breaking.  Suddenly hearing or reading these words won’t set off any light bulbs.  Instead, they’ll remind you of what social media marketing is intended for in the first place: being social.

“Join the conversation” (as an idea) might sum up social media marketing into a nicely packaged 3 word phrase, but it’s not advice:  it’s a sales pitch.

Better Products = Social Media 🙂

You can’t argue with the logic: great products get talked about.  (Well, so do terrible ones, just not in the way you’d want.)  The problem is, this isn’t social media advice.  It isn’t even really business advice.  It’s common sense.

So get on that, will you?  Jeez.

Companies don’t develop deliberately inferior products, and I’ve yet to hear of a company that determined the quality of their product based on the potential success of their social media marketing campaign.  It just doesn’t work that way.  By the time most marketing departments become involved, a product is set.  And in the rare cases marketing people do have input, it has less to do with the quality of the product as much as the marketability of features, options, flavors, etc.

As a social media marketer, I’ve never had any kind of input in the development stages of my clients’ products.  And if I could pick and choose my clients, I’d go with the brands that have the most to offer their customers.  Every time.  But if I went to any of my current clients and said: “develop a better product and we’ll see more social media success” without something very specific (and realistic) in mind, it’d more than likely be the beginning to a very awkward conversation.

Another way people like to frame this as advice:  “Social media can’t save bad brands, it’ll only shine light on its flaws.”  No arguments here, but that statement has helped exactly ZERO companies develop a winning social media campaign.

Bad Customer Service = Social Media 🙁

This is great advice.  It really is.  To say customer service doesn’t matter from a social media perspective would be a lie.  The problem is, if a company gets to the point where their social media marketing team had to tell them this for it to click, it’s already too late.  That’s not to say things can’t turn around, but more times than not, with the case of poor customer service, your SMM team will be fighting an up-hill battle.  And this company might want to consider putting social media on the back burner while they focus on making their customers happy for a change.

The other side of this coin is the potential that truly remarkable customer service can bring.  If anything gets people talking about a brand beyond amazing products it’s a company that makes their customers feel loved.  But again, to do this for the sake of social media is to get it dreadfully wrong.  Great customer service worked for businesses long before there was a Facebook or Twitter and it will continue to work after they’re long gone (one can dream, right?).  Customer service should be for your CUSTOMERS.  So if only go out of your way to make them feel special just because you’d like them to recommend you to their Facebook friends, be prepared to be disappointed.

Did I miss any?

 

 

Written By:

Todd Heim | Essential Internet Marketing | @ToddHeim

Todd Heim is CEO, co-founder, and SEO manager of Essential Internet Marketing, LLC, an SEM and Social Media Marketing company based in Albany, NY.

 

More Posts By Todd Heim

 

• Wiehan Britz

  Some decent pointers thanx for stating them… just one point I would like to bring to your attention: REMEMBER CONTENT IS KING! 🙂 lol sweet looking foward to the next one

• http://www.friendselectric.biz Chris McLellan

  By the way, could you or anyone) possibly share with me how to enter shares of blog posts on Twitter in the Comments as is the case here?

• http://twitter.com/websiteconsult Marcus Interactive

  Interesting take on things. It’s all about content and customer service. Every company has the same line, “LIKE us on Facebook” and my question is always, “WHY?” What do you as a company offer me to make me want to LIKE you versus your competiion? You need to offer to consumer a good reason, whether it’s unique information, a unique promotion, something Special.
  And with customer service, quick story. I have a Samsung Blu-Ray. Was having major issues and their phone service sucks. Got online, posted something to their Facebook and within 20 minutes heard back from them. They fixed my problem. Integrate the customer service department with the social media department and make your company responsive to your customer.

• http://www.zippycart.com Zippy Cart

  Marcus (if that IS your real name) – I agree completely with the “Like us on Facebook” thing. If your customers are going to do something social media-related (Follow, Like, Tweet, comment, etc.), then they’re going to do it of their own free will because of how they feel about the product, service, brand, etc. Not because of some stock call to action that the design or content team stuck up next to their embedded Facebook or Twitter buttons out of fear of “just leaving them there.” I can just see the conversation at most large organizations:
  “Okay, we added Facebook and Twitter buttons to our home page.”
  “Like, just stuck them up there?”
  “M-hmm, in a conspicuous, but not obtrusive space.”
  “Just sitting there?”
  “Yes…?”
  “Are there any instructions for what to do?”
  “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? If the viewer likes us and wants to follow us on Twitter, they’ll do it.”
  “Well…I don’t know…maybe we should just put a call to action or something, to kind of remind them…”
  *sarcasm* “What, like ‘Like us on Facebook!’?”
  “That’s perfect!”
  “No, I was kid–”
  “Do it! That’s it. I’ve heard enough!”

• Keshav

  I agree that content is the king. If content is poor social media could not benefit the shared content, link, or community. Your content should be genuine and original.

• http://www.brandignity.com Brandignity

  It definitely becomes more and more challenging each day as new start ups enter the tech space and change the playing field. I think that is part of the challenge when it comes to social media if you are not accepting to a dynamic landscape.

• http://www.brickmarketing.com/ Nick Stamoulis

  One of the reasons it is so hard to give specific advice for social media marketing is because each networking site has its own set of users, its own set of rules and set of expectations. How consumers interact on Twitter is very different from Facebook or a blog. Companies have to adapt their brand and messaging to fit into the mold of each site and that can be tricky sometimes.

• http://www.icapaydayloans.com/articles.html Mihai Rosu

  Hi there.
  A grate post, i was searching for some platitudes. I found this article on google, i’ve read it and i’m glad that i found it. I found just what i was nedeed.Thanks a lot.

blog comments powered by Disqus

« The free market | Blog Home | Wasting the digital dividend »

How to fail

There are some significant misunderstandings about failure. A common one, similar to one we seem to have about death, is that if you don't plan for it, it won't happen.

All of us fail. Successful people fail often, and, worth noting, learn more from that failure than everyone else.

Two habits that don't help:

• Getting good at avoiding blame and casting doubt
• Not signing up for visible and important projects

While it may seem like these two choices increase your chances for survival or even promotion, in fact they merely insulate you from worthwhile failures.

I think it's worth noting that my definition of failure does not include being unlucky enough to be involved in a project where random external events kept you from succeeding. That's the cost of showing up, not the definition of failure.

Identifying these random events, of course, is part of the art of doing ever better. Many of the things we'd like to blame as being out of our control are in fact avoidable or can be planned around.

Here are six random ideas that will help you fail better, more often and with an inevitably positive upside:

1. Whenever possible, take on specific projects.
2. Make detailed promises about what success looks like and when it will occur.
3. Engage others in your projects. If you fail, they should be involved and know that they will fail with you.
4. Be really clear about what the true risks are. Ignore the vivid, unlikely and ultimately non-fatal risks that take so much of our focus away.
5. Concentrate your energy and will on the elements of the project that you have influence on, ignore external events that you can't avoid or change.
6. When you fail (and you will) be clear about it, call it by name and outline specifically what you learned so you won't make the same mistake twice. People who blame others for failure will never be good at failing, because they've never done it.

If that list frightened you, you might be getting to the nub of the matter. If that list feels like the sort of thing you'd like your freelancers, employees or even bosses to adopt, then perhaps it's resonating as a plan going forward for you.

Posted by Seth Godin on April 11, 2011 | Permalink

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451b31569e20147e261d04d970b

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference How to fail:

« The free market | Blog Home | Wasting the digital dividend »