Working from Yosemite

Other than servicing the clients existing clients in progress, I spent a good chunk of the past month in Yosemite, hiking, exploring, bouldering and learning. There are a couple good public wi-fi spots in the valley including The Awahanee (strong wi-fi, but cell service is bad) and my favorite is just about anywhere near the employee housing between Housekeeping campgrounds and Curry Village; Strong signal, outdoors, bears, ravens, oh my. Mortgage rates pretty much did nothing, except for the high-balance conforming loans where lenders artificially and deliberately increased the rates there to slow down originations. Their portfolios are are too heavy with those loans, so they're pushing for the $417,000 and lower loans now, and of course, in Northern California (Bay Area in particular), that really doesn't help the housing market for sales or refi. Remember my post on "Dead Cat Bounce" about a year ago? I think we're in the bounce now. I'll comment on that next. Pat Townsley; 415-485-1776. www.ptre.net