The Most Famous House In Every State

Reader’s Digest has come out with a very interesting list where they complied the most “famous” home in every state.  Some have historical significance, some architectural and some are due to celebrity status.

The list below has some gems like Helen Keller’s birthplace, the Playboy Mansion and the house from the Home Alone movie:

Alabama – Helen Keller’s birthplace
Alaska – Governor’s Mansion
Arizona – Taliesin West
Arkansas – Johnny Cash’s boyhood home
California – The Playboy Mansion
Colorado – Molly Brown’s house
Connecticut – The Glass house
Delaware – Nemours Estate
Florida – Earnest Hemingway House
Georgia – Birth home of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Hawaii – Lolani Palace
Idaho – The former Idaho State Penitentiary
Illinois – The “Home Alone” house
Indiana – Culbertson Mansion
Iowa – the American Gothic House 
Kansas – Amelia Earhart’s birthplace
Kentucky – Mary Todd Lincoln’s house
Louisiana – Oak Valley Plantation
Maine – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s house
Maryland – Mount Clare
Massachusetts – Lizzie Bordern’s house
Michigan – The Ford House
Minnesota – Paisley Park
Mississippi – Elvis Presley’s birthplace
Missouri – Mark Twain’s boyhood home
Montana – Moss Mansion
Nebraska – Buffalo Bill’s farmhouse
Nevada – Governor’s Mansion
New Hampshire – Castle in the Clouds
New Jersey – Walt Whitman’s house
New Mexico – Kit Carson’s home
New York – Gracie Mansion
North Carolina – Biltmore Estate
North Dakota – Lawrence Welk’s birthplace
Ohio – The A Christmas Story house
Oklahoma – The Marland Mansion
Oregon – The Hughes House
Pennsylvania – Fallingwater
Rhode Island – The Breakers
South Carolina – The John Joyner Smith House
South Dakota – The Summer White House
Tennessee – Graceland
Texas – Yates House
Utah – The Beehive House
Vermont – Robert Frost’s house in Shaftsbury
Virginia – Mt. Vernon
Washington – Kurt Cobain’s house
West Virginia – Lockwood House
Wisconsin – Laura Ingalls Wilder birthplace
Wyoming – Fossil Cabin

How many of these have you visited?

For pictures of each house and why each place was selected, visit the article on Reader’s Digest

What Happened to Rates Last Week?

Mortgage backed securities (FNMA 4.00 MBS) gained +29 basis points (BPS) from last Friday’s close which caused fixed mortgage rates to move slightly lower compared to the previous week.

Overview:  MBS were pressured lower and trading right along our bottom support level until Friday’s GDP report.  And it was a very interesting take on the GDP data by the markets. First, MBS moved lower (higher rates) on the massive headline beat of 3.2%. However, once the market read through and digested the report, it became clearer that a good chunk of the beat was due to inventory build up, which may (or may not) have been due to front running higher tariffs. The internal prices paid was also about half of market expectations. Together, these two combined to cause trades to reverse course and back into positive territory (lower rates).

GDP:  A huge beat with the release of the preliminary (will be revised several times) 1st QTR GDP of 3.2% vs est of 2.1%.  Those estimates were 0.4% a month ago and 1.9% a week ago.  This is one of the hottest 1st QTRs in recent history.  However, inflation remained at bay with GDP Prices up only  0.6% for the Quarter which was half of the market expectations of 1.3%.

Consumer Sentiment:  The preliminary April reading hit 97.2 vs et of 97.0

Durable Goods: The Preliminary March data was three times as high as expected with the headline reading coming in at 2.7% vs est of 0.8%.  When you strip out Transportation it was double the expectations, 0.4% vs est of 0.2%.  And big focal point of traders is the Non-Defense/Ex Aircraft which jumped by 1.3% vs expectations of only 0.1%. 

Taking it to the House: Existing Home Sales for March were a little lower than expected (5.21M vs est of 5.30M) on an annualized basis.  But is that a miss?  Or are the “estimates” wrong to begin with?  Regardless, time on the market fell, and we hit a new all time high for March for the median sales price.  In fact the median sales price YOY has now risen for 85 straight months.

What to Watch Out For This Week:

The above are the major economic reports that will hit the market this week. They each have the ability to affect the pricing of Mortgage Backed Securities and therefore, interest rates for Government and Conventional mortgages. I will be watching these reports closely for you and let you know if there are any big surprises.

It is virtually impossible for you to keep track of what is going on with the economy and other events that can impact the housing and mortgage markets.  Just leave it to me, I monitor the live trading of Mortgage Backed Securities which are the only thing government and conventional mortgage rates are based upon.