Spiro's Mortgage & Real Estate Source

Looking for safe cities in which to live? A recent study may help you.

Titled "America's Safest Cities", Forbes Magazine compiled data from more than 70 cities with populations of 250,000 or more, and ranked them by violent crime rate as reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

A "violent crime" is one that can be categorized as murder, robbery, and assault, among others. Then, for each metropolis, local traffic-fatality rates were added to the area's violent crime rate, and averaged into the data.

Forbes presents the 10 safest large cities in America as :

1. Plano, Texas
2. Henderson, Nevada
3. Honolulu, Hawaii
4. Santa Ana, California
5. Lincoln, Nebraska
6. San Jose, California
7. Mesa. Arizona
8. Colorado Springs, Colorado
9. Aurora, Colorado
10. New York, New York

Forbes is quick to note that "gridlocked" traffic patterns help keep cities safe; which may explain why cities like Honolulu and New York City made the Top 10. When cars are forced to move more slowly, the report states, traffic-related fatalities tend to plummet.

Don't rush to make a home-buying decision based on Forbes data alone, however. Like everything else in real estate, data is local and city-wide statistics are too broad to be helpful to an everyday buyer in Novato.

For accurate, real-time, local crime data, be sure to ask a real estate profession.

Sent from my iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Have you been floating a mortgage rate? It may be time to lock.

At 8:30 AM ET Friday, the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its November Non-Farm Payrolls report. Better known as “the jobs report”, the monthly Non-Farm Payrolls figures provide sector-by-sector employment data, and tally the size of the current U.S. workforce size.

From these two elements, the national Unemployment Rate is derived.

Since topping out at 10.2% in October 2009, the Unemployment Rate has dropped to 9.0%. More than 2.3 million net new jobs have been made in the last 24 months.

Wall Street expect to see 125,000 more jobs added in November.

Depending on how closely the actual Non-Farm Payrolls data meets Wall Street expectations, Novato rate shoppers could find that the mortgage market landscape has shifted beneath them. The jobs report is a mortgage-market catalyst and when its reported value differs from Wall Street expectations, the impact on mortgage rates can be palpable — especially in a recovering economy.

The connection between the jobs market and the mortgage market is straight-forward — as the jobs market goes, so goes the economy.

1. When more people work, consumer spending increases
2. When consumer spending rises, businesses expand and invest
3. When businesses expand and invest, more people are put to work

Furthermore, employees and employers both pay taxes to governments. With more tax revenue, governments embark upon new projects which (1) require the hiring of additional workers, and (2) require the purchase and/or repair of additional equipment and supplies. 

Employment can be a self-reinforcing cycle for the economy and that’s why Friday’s jobs report will be so closely watched. If the number of jobs created exceeds the 125,000 expected, mortgage rates will rise on the expectation for a stronger U.S. economy in 2012.

Conversely, if the jobs figures fall short, mortgage rates may fall. 

Mortgage rates continue to hover near all-time lows according to Freddie Mac’s weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage is sub-4.000 percent nationwide, with an accompanying fee of 0.7 discount points. 1 discount point is equal to 1 percent of your loan size.

If you’re under contract for a home or looking to refinance, minimize your interest rate risk. Lock ahead of Friday’s Non-Farm Payrolls release.

Get your rate lock in today.