Orlando Real Estate Voice

Did you catch the frumpy 47-year old Susan
Boyle on her audition for Britain’s version
of American Idol?

If not, it may be the best seven minutes you’ll
spend this year. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

She’s middle aged, triple-chinned, eyebrows
that look like dead caterpillars, never been
kissed by a man… everyone just knew this
Gong-Show reject was going to bomb.

I had to give Simon Cowell credit, as he
did his best to keep a straight face. When
he asked about her goal, she said she wanted
to sing like a star.

Simon rolled his eyes at this train wreck. Half
the audience groaned. The other half just sighed,
shaking their heads. Some outright sneered.

But when she started to sing…

…it was like Angels from heaven had came
to earth.

She lit it up. And the crowd went wild!

If you were touched by her performance, you
are not alone. It brings out and OVERCOMES
something in you that you try to hide, yet
it’s buried inside you somewhere.

Any time you’ve faced defeat… been laughed
at and humiliated… had your spirit crushed…
faced rejection… experienced shame… you
strengthened this part of you that identified
with her.

Yet this one person reached inside herself and
overcame all that inner negativity in one fell swoop.

The face you don’t want anyone to see… the one
you hide even from yourself… is the one that she
wears every day. And she turned it into a thing of
beauty.

This is about redemption, baby.

And it’s within your reach, too. If you lack
confidence that you can’t work in this foreclosure
market, that it’s too hard, or you’ll never make
it, that’s that inner voice of failure talking.

But know that you can reach inside and bring
out the best within you and emerge a success.

If Susan Boyle did it, you can too.

You might not hear much about them on TV or in the papers, but there are some economic signs popping up right now that are — at the VERY least — encouraging for housing and real estate.

Take the gold standard of all forward indicators for the U.S. economy — the Conference Board’s “Index of Leading Indicators,” which is based on a broad survey of industry data and predicts economic activity three to six months down the road.

The latest Conference Board index registered its first increase in six months. Now I know that all we hear about these days is recession: it’s either already here or it’s about to happen. But the index suggests that there should be positive growth underway in the second half of the year, if not sooner. Look at the stock market, it’s starting it’s upward trend again.

The National Bureau of Economic Research which found that industrial production in the U.S. showed an unexpected uptick in March.

Here are some other noteworthy developments this past week:

• Applications for mortgages to buy houses were up again, it was the second straight week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association of America’s national survey. Applications for FHA loans to buy houses jumped by three and a half percent — and conventional purchase applications rose 2.1 percent.
• The federal government reported that house prices nationwide stopped their slide between January and February — and actually increased by six tenths of one percent.
• Interest rates remain well under 6 percent, according to the Mortgage Bankers, with 30-year fixed rate loans last week averaging 5.74 percent and 15-year loans at 5.27 percent. The Federal Reserve is likely to knock another quarter percent off short term rates next week.
• Freddie Mac announced plans to pump up to 15 billion dollars into the “jumbo conforming” loan market — those are for high cost areas that really need some stimulus right now, like California.

Now, positive-sounding economic developments are not ballgame-changers for real estate. We’ve still got lots of housing inventory to sell before calling an end to the down cycle — and total sales dipped 2 percent in March, according to the National Association of Realtors.

We’re still dealing with a lack of confidence on the part of some consumers who are afraid that maybe prices still have a ways to fall.

But here’s the point: It’s undeniable that there are some glimmers out there that the underlying economy and financing marketplace, which after all are what support real estate activity, finally may be headed in a positive direction.