A Major Lender to lay off 3000, the fed to may not raise rates in May, and a Seattle house has ten offers

Ameriquest Mortgage said they would lay off 3,000 people. They are consolidating their retail operations, just as Washington Mutual said it would recently. So the mortgage market is feeling the pressure is my guess. So how do we explain the Seattle Real Estate market? I was lucky enough to be on the winning side of a 10 offer bid for a North Seattle house. The house was on a great block, a big yard, a cute home by anyone's standards. So was it the house, or the seattle real estate market or both?

I have been saying this for a while, the economy is booming, no one I know I unemployed. People are making money, people are spending it. All be it, they are spending a little more on gas than they would like. The SUV sales have hit a huge damper, and I am kind of glad about that. I also see a slew of smaller cute urban cars. So gas prices will drop, as demand slows, and oil inventories don't scare people.

So real estate markets will follow local economies as usual. I heard about the new home sales number for March come in much higher than expected. So that is good news for real estate in most areas. Bad news, overall home sales pending is down across the country. So mixed bag, means stagnancy. The real estate market needs to slow down in my opinion. I think in Seattle it is, but not in all price ranges.

As always UrbanTango.com agents are your smart real estate professionals, who are nice people. I am in Minneapolis, on vacation again. If any of you know any nice people who are also Smart Real Estate agents in Minneapolis, or Twin Cities please don't hesitate to contact us at vipin@UrbanTango.com

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.