In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses international trade.

• Fresh data from the Federal Reserve showed that housing equity (home value minus mortgage outstanding) rose to $6.67 trillion in the first quarter, a gain of $425 billion.  A small gain in home prices has a sizable impact in the aggregate to the homeowners’ net worth.  But at the height of the housing bubble, the net worth in residential real estate was $13.5 trillion.
• International trade pulled back in April with both exports and imports falling.  Exports fell 0.8 percent, while imports fell 1.7 percent.  Despite a one month setback the overall trend is still a healthy recovery in the sector.  Export growth has been particularly strong from mid-2009.  Many U.S. companies from Coca Cola to Caterpillar and from Intel to Microsoft sell more abroad than in the U.S.  However, exports need to steadily grow faster than imports to meaningfully narrow the trade gap.
• A wrong way to narrow the trade gap would be by enacting tariffs.  Note in the chart below that sharp declines in exports and imports occur in times of economic recession.  So let’s hope the April decline is a one month anomaly.
• One of the most important historical examples occurred in 1871 when German-speaking people in formerly independent-like countries Hanover, Brandenburg, Bavaria, and the like united to create a country called Germany.  This formation removed all tariffs between the provinces and therefore naturally accelerated the trading of goods and services across provincial border lines.  The increased competition thereby turned Germany into a major economic player.  America likewise is very fortunate to have no tariffs between states, say of selling Maryland-made goods in Virginia.
• Increased international trade will also mean a greater number of REALTOR clients with international backgrounds in rentals and home buying.  For commercial practitioners, there is always an increase in demand for industrial and warehouse spaces when international trade rises.

Pinterest is the new social media obsession, and this ever popular phenomenon has climbed its way up to being the third most popular social networking site, following Facebook and Twitter. The premise of Pinterest allows users to “pin” pictures of things they love to virtual categorized corkboards. These pictures often include a link to a website where the image originated.

Individuals are loving the information and ideas they can gain from using Pinterest. From clothing to photography to humorous sayings, Pinterest has a little bit of everything for everybody.

Because of its appeal, many businesses are wondering if they should start using it for their business. While it can generate traffic to your website and provide you with an uncanny amount of exposure, Pinterest is not right for every business. Use the following tips to determine if Pinterest is a tactic to place your marketing dollars.

1. Can I reach my target audience on Pinterest?

While Pinterest has a great following, your target demographic may not be on Pinterest. According to a Modea.com infographic, 68.2% of Pinterest users are female and the most popular age demographic is between 25-34 years old. On top of that, 50% of Pinterest users have kids.

If your target demographic is female and fall into the other popular Pinterest user categories, then Pinterest is a great place to reach your target demographic. On the other hand, if you’re audience is male, or if you’re targeting a younger or older demographic, it’s not to say that Pinterest isn’t for you. You can still reach your audience through this platform, it just won’t be as easy. You can always try to put a little effort into Pinterest to see where it gets you. If you don’t see much success, you won’t have wasted too much time and effort.

2. How do people use Pinterest?

People use Pinterest as a virtual corkboard. Rather than bookmark a bunch of different websites, users pin things they love to their board, and Pinterest keeps it all in one centralized location. For example, a user can create a “food” board and pin all their favorite recipes to the board. They can also create a “vacations” board and pin getaways they’d love to take on the board. There’s really no limit to what can and cannot be pinned, and users like having one place to keep their information.

In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses the GDP.

• Gross domestic product (GDP) grew at slower pace of 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2012, based on the revised estimate of the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  This is a downward revision from the preliminary estimate of 2.2 percent and a slowdown from the 2011 Q4 growth of 3.0 percent.
• Looking beyond the aggregate number, stronger growth was recorded for private consumption spending (2.7%) and residential fixed investment (19.4%). This is the second quarter of double digit growth in residential fixed investment.
• Meanwhile, the Department of Labor also reported that 383,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance were filed for the week ending May 26; claims are up by 10,000 from the previous week. The official employment condition will be released by the Bureau of Labor Statics this Friday.
• From a separate data source, the private sector employment grew by 133,000 in May.  The pace is implying continuing expansion of jobs but rather sluggishly.  Jobs should be growing at 250,000 per month to be considered healthy.  This data from ADP, a company that processes many of private companies’ paychecks, has been reasonably a good predictor of official employment condition that will be released Friday.