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Some E-Mail Etiquette
While there are no set rules on how to compose e-mails, certain guidelines exist to make e-mail communications more comprehensible to the recipient and less embarrassing for you. Here are some pointers:
- Be concise — Some people receive hundreds of e-mails a day. Give them a break and keep yours concise and to the point.
- Don’t overdo the punctuation — There’s no reason to end a statement with multiple exclamation points, even if you think it is important!!! Electronically, the importance should be reflected in your text, not the punctuation.
- DON’T SEND A MESSAGE IN ALL UPPER CASE (unless, of course, you are angry) — This is the equivalent of shouting in someone’s ear.
- Forget formatting — You are not designing a document, book or magazine article. Make it easy on your recipient and just send text e-mails with no, or just very simple, formatting so they can understand your message. Anything more extensive than that could result in utter gibberish on their end.
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Countrywide Awards Million-Dollar Grant to National Housing Endowment
The National Housing Endowment, the philanthropic arm of NAHB, announced that it has received a gift …
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Housing Snapshot
Amidst rising expectations for the Federal Reserve to start gradually moving up interest rates, mortgage rates continued their slow upward climb last week. Thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgages rose to 6.34% on Freddie Mac's weekly index, up from 5.45% a year earlier. General economic news suggested that the economy is perking up: Commerce Department statistics showed that exports in March increased 14.6% from a year earlier; and the Labor Department showed that the manufacturing sector added 21,000 jobs in April, the first increase in almost four years. There were also more signs of inflation last week: a 0.2% increase in the Consumer Price Index and a 0.8% rise in the producer price index in April, suggesting that the Fed may decide on its first rate hike next month. On the lumber front, framing lumber rose slightly to $463 per 1,000 board feet last week, according to Random Lengths, but panel prices tumbled to $485 per 1,000 square feet for 15/32-inch 3-ply CDX southern westeast plywood and to $450 for oriented strand board. They still have a lot more tumbling to do, however, before they return to normal levels.
| Mortgage Interest Rates |
| 30-Year Fixed-Rate |
6.34% |
| 15-Year Fixed-Rate |
5.72% |
| 1-Year ARM |
3.90% |
| Housing Starts - Mar. 2004* |
| Total |
2.007 million |
| Single-Family Starts |
1.599 million |
| Multifamily Starts |
408,000 |
New Home Sales
Mar. 2004* |
1.228 million |
Existing Home Sales
Mar. 2004* |
6.48 million |
| * Seasonally adjusted annual rate |
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