It's Blizzard Time!

Indulging your sweet tooth can be a rewarding experience on Miracle Treat Day. When you order a Dairy Queen Blizzard on Thursday, July 26 in the U.S. and Canada, proceeds will benefit Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and other worthy causes in your community.

Did you Know?  RE/MAX Associates have raised more than $115 million for CMN Hospitals since 1992.

RE/MAX is global

It’s the site that has revolutionized international real estate search. Now, global.remax.com is getting an online marketing boost with new web banners available in seven languages, and some of them are appearing before millions of readers on the Wall Street Journal’s website.

The online banners, designed by the RE/MAX Graphics Team, are available in seven languages – English, Spanish, Hindi, German, Italian, Chinese and Portuguese.  The banners depict a variety of scenarios – a new baby, a wedding, a child going off to college – that tie in to the RE/MAX advertising campaign, "For All The Things That Move You."

"Our regions and Associates around the world now have these invaluable tools that speak to consumers in their native languages so they can promote global.remax.com in their markets," says Larry Oberly, RE/MAX Vice President of International Development. 

"With the English banners appearing on the Wall Street Journal’s website, millions of consumers are learning of the network’s global reach and ability to cater to any buyer, anywhere in the world. This is a tremendous advantage no other real estate organization comes close to."

Since launching last fall, global.remax.com has added hundreds of thousands of home listings in more than 70 countries and territories in 32 languages. The site has attracted nearly 750,000 unique visitors who have generated more than 18 million page views. The majority of visitors are from China while the most-searched city is London. In April, the top areas being searched included Costa Rica, the Bahamas and Belize.

Visitors can also check prices in 31 currencies and get the latest world real estate news and events through an in-depth and detailed news feed. The closest competing website offers properties in only 18 countries, 11 languages and 20 currencies.

Home Loan Interest Rates

Type A or Anal Retentive?

Anal Retentive

• S: (adj) anal, anal retentive (a stage in psychosexual development when the child's interest is concentrated on the anal region; fixation at this stage is said to result in orderliness, meanness, stubbornness, compulsiveness, etc.) 

Type A

The theory describes a Type A individual as ambitious, aggressive, business-like, controlling, highly competitive, impatient, preoccupied with his or her status, time-conscious, and tightly-wound. People with Type A personalities are often high-achieving "workaholics" who multi-task, push themselves with deadlines, and hate both delays and ambivalence.

In his 1996 book, Type A Behavior: Its Diagnosis and Treatment, Friedman suggests that Type A behavior is expressed in three major symptoms: free-floating hostility, which can be triggered by even minor incidents; time urgency and impatience, which causes irritation and exasperation; and a competitive drive, which causes stress and an achievement-driven mentality. The first of these symptoms is believed to be covert and therefore less observable, while the other two are more overt.^[3]

Because of these characteristics, Type A individuals are often described as "stress junkies" by individuals with Type B or other personality types.^{[citation needed]} Many successful business and political leaders have Type A personalities.

How Long Until You Can Buy Again?

Home Loan Interest Rates

Why Buy Now?

WHY BUY?

There are plenty of good reasons to buy your home. Here are just a few.

· You’ll own it. You’ll have a place to call your own, a place to raise your children and a chance to become a part of your community. You can pass your home down to your children and their children, creating security for generations to come.

· Your payments may be less. When you buy your home, your monthly payments are often less — and you own it in the end. Homeownership can also reduce the federal income taxes you pay because you can deduct your mortgage interest and property taxes on the tax returns you file each year. These tax savings partially reduce or offset the actual cost of owning your home.

· Your payments may never increase. If you choose a mortgage with a fixed interest rate, you’ll make the same mortgage payment each month for the entire 30 years of the loan.

· You’ll build a big nest egg. Owning a home is the single greatest source of financial security and independence for the majority of people who have taken this step. You can experience that sense of security, too.

WHY BUY NOW?

Current market factors make NOW a great time to buy a home.

· Low interest rates. Mortgage rates have returned to near-record lows, reducing monthly payments substantially.

· Competitive prices. Prices are attractive in today’s slower market and will rise again when the housing cycle turns up.

· An improving mortgage market. Lenders are making loans to borrowers with good credit, and Congress and the White House are pursuing ways to make loans more available to first-time buyers and buyers in high-cost markets.

· Great selection. It’s easy to find the home you are looking for at a price you can afford.

· Energy efficiency. Today’s new homes are designed to save you money on your monthly utility bills, and increasingly incorporate new green technologies. See the RE/MAX Parkside Green Home Guide for more information on green homes.

Pacific Northwest renting vs. buying

So what happens if rates jump:  Here are some raw statistics to contend with.  Let’s say a person is committed to paying at most $1,000 per month in principal and interest to be comfortably within this person’s budget.  A mortgage calculator will spit out that at a 3.9 percent rate (last week’s rate), this homebuyer will be able to take out $212,000 in mortgage amount.  At 4.5 percent (near future rate), the figure drops to $198,000, or the equivalent to a drop of 7 percent in purchasing power.  The homebuyer therefore has to shoot for lower price points.

Some more reading on rates rising