October saw housing starts increase 1.9% over September, as builders answer growing demand. Looking to the future, they also took out 1.1% more Building Permits than the month before.

Purchase mortgage applications rose for the second week in a row according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, which noted, “both purchase and refinance applications increased to the highest weekly pace in five weeks.”

Realtor.com reports that last week both new listings and active inventory were up from a year ago. Demand remains strong, as homes spent two fewer days on the market compared to last year.

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

My grandma taught me everything about Christmas. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: “There is no Santa Claus,” jeered my sister. “Even dummies know that!”

My grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me.

“No Santa Claus!” she snorted. “Ridiculous! Don’t believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let’s go.”

“Go? Go where, Grandma?” I asked. I hadn’t even finished my second cinnamon bun.

“Where” turned out to be Kerby’s General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days.

“Take this money,” she said, “and buy something for someone who needs it. I’ll wait for you in the car.” Then she turned and walked out of Kerby’s.

I was only eight years old. I’d often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for. I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church.

I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobbie Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock’s grade-two class. Bobbie Decker didn’t have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough; but all we kids knew that Bobbie Decker didn’t have a cough, and he didn’t have a coat.

I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobbie Decker a coat. I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that. I didn’t see a price tag, but ten dollars ought to buy anything. I put the coat and my ten-dollar bill on the counter and pushed them toward the lady behind it.

She looked at the coat, the money, and me. “Is this a Christmas present for someone?” she asked kindly. “Yes,” I replied shyly. “It’s … for Bobbie. He’s in my class, and he doesn’t have a coat.” The nice lady smiled at me. I didn’t get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons, and write, “To Bobbie, From Santa Claus” on it … Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy.

Then she drove me over to Bobbie Decker’s house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa’s helpers. Grandma parked down the street from Bobbie’s house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk.

Suddenly, Grandma gave me a nudge. “All right, Santa Claus,” she whispered, “get going.”

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell twice and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobbie. He looked down, looked around, picked up his present, took it inside and closed the door.

Forty years haven’t dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my grandma, in Bobbie Decker’s bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: Ridiculous!

Santa was alive and well … AND WE WERE ON HIS TEAM!

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com

Inventory growth in November is rare, but Altos Research reports 62,000 new listings last week, up 0.7% from the prior week, with 9,000 under contract. Although 39.2% of listings have had a price cut, prices are still above last year.

Data Provide CoreLogic found single-family home prices rose in September for the third month in a row and are up 4.5% year-over-year, the largest annual gain since February. But they forecast yearly growth will slow to 2.6% by next September.

The Mortgage Bankers Association recorded purchase mortgage applications up 3% last week, reversing three weeks of declines. Even applications for refinances were up 2% from the week before.

Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have. ~
Margaret Mead

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com

Home builders keep…well, building. In September, residential builders spent at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.6% ahead of August.

Home prices rose again in August, according to both the Case-Shiller home price index and the FHFA index of homes financed with conforming mortgages. The Case-Shiller National Composite stands at an all-time high.

Demand for new homes continues. A national online real estate database reports more than 30% of the homes for sale in the third quarter were new builds—the highest share for any third quarter on record.

Perfect happiness is a beautiful sunset, the giggle of a grandchild, the first snowfall. It’s the little things that make happy moments, not the grand events. Joy comes in sips, not gulps. ~ Sharon Draper

Our family will be home for Thanksgiving this year–a departure from normal since we’ve spent more than 25 Thanksgivings on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. We’ll miss our island time, but being together is what’s important.

I’ve always wanted my children to be thankful, and now that the grand-babies have joined us, it’s even more important to keep that focus.

Like many families, one of our family traditions has been to go around the table at the end of the meal and share what we’re thankful for that year.

It’s always a precious time. We’ve had great excitement when our sons proposed to their sweethearts and tears as we thanked God for answered prayers for the gift of a new grandbaby or for renewed health after scary hospital stays.

We’ve had sweet moments of just thanking God for who He is and for His faithfulness and love. And there have been times we’ve laughed until we’ve wiped tears from our cheeks.

Like the Thanksgiving Day a few years ago when our little granddaughter, Ava, was about 21-months-old. All of the adults had already shared about God’s blessings to them when I said to Ava, “Baby, do you have anything you’re thankful for today?”

She was so little that we didn’t really expect her to say anything, but she nodded her head vigorously, her little pigtails bouncing.

She softly said, “I’m thankful for Mommy and Daddy…” it was so precious and so unexpected that we all got tears in our eyes. And then she continued, “…and catsup…and coffee, too.”

Oh, my! From the mouths of babes.

Sweet friends, sometimes we become so focused on the big events of our lives that we forget about the little moments that really aren’t so little when you stop to think about them.

Times of making memories, sitting around the table with those we love, laughing and sharing about our blessings. Moments of listening to stories of times past from older family members and watching little ones playing on the floor.

So this year in the midst of Thanksgiving Day with all its busyness and mayhem, take a few minutes to look at each person and think about what they mean to you. Focus on those ordinary moments together that we should never take for granted.

And don’t forget to snap some photos. Not just posed photos, but pictures of you in the kitchen with your grandmother while you mash the potatoes together, of your dad slicing the turkey or your husband playing with the children.

These are the moments you’ll want to revisit someday.

God has been so good to us. How could we help but give thanks to Him for all His blessings. And for catsup and coffee, too! ~ Michelle Cox

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com

Builders increased activities in September, sending housing starts back up, by 7.0% over August. Starts for single-families are now up 8.6% the past year, as tight existing home inventories are driving buyers to new builds.

Building permits slipped in September, but it was all due to multi-family permits. Single-family permits increased and have done so every month since February. The current number of homes under construction is near the highest level on record.

Tight inventories sent monthly existing home sales down in September. The supply of homes for sale, at 3.4 months, is well below the 5 months of a normal market, while the median price is up 2.8% from a year ago.

Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God. Leo Buscaglia

Rich “Goose” Gossage, the Yankees most storied closer prior to Mariano Rivera, speaks of Rivera’s dominance this way: When Rivera takes the mound, the other team “is sitting in the dugout thinking, ‘We’ve got no chance. It’s over.’ This guy walks into the game, and they are done.

Roger Clemens says, “The hitters know he’s going to throw it—everybody knows—and it doesn’t make a difference. You see batters going to face Rivera, trying to work themselves into the at-bat, and he throws one cutter, the ball swerving, and they are all but beaten mentally. After one pitch, it’s over,” says Clemens. “He is that nasty.”

No pitcher in the modern game combined as much velocity and movement into one pitch. “The pitch is a freak of nature,” says former teammate Mike Stanton.

Many people wonder how Mariano perfected that incredible pitch?

”At 18 he was earning 50 dollars a week on a fishing boat, playing various positions for a local baseball team.

One game, the manager thrust Mariano into emergency relief. “I got results that were way beyond my physical abilities,” Mariano writes in his autobiography, The Closer. That same year, he’d begun studying the Bible at the urging of a cousin.

Two years later, the New York Yankees signed Mariano to a minor league contract. He was a fringe prospect, with an underwhelming 87-mph fastball.

In 1995, he was called up to the majors. In four starts, he gave up 23 runs. He was demoted to AAA Columbus.

There, warming up before a game, he noticed that his pitches had more zip than usual. A radar gun clocked his fastball at 98 mph, an impossible gain in velocity. Scouts thought the gun was defective.

Not long after, he played catch with another pitcher, who grew frustrated that Mariano’s throws kept jumping away. Mariano swore he hadn’t changed his grip. But he could not get his fastball to fly straight.

Mariano had found his cutter—a twist on the fastball that breaks sharply at the last second.

“I did not spend years searching for the pitch,” he recalls in his memoir. “It was as if it dropped straight from the heavens.”

In 2009, Mariano and his wife, Clara, founded a church in New Rochelle, New York. Their way of giving back for the miracles that brought him from poverty to a sure spot in the Hall of Fame.

Mariano’s 2.21 lifetime earned-run average is even more impressive considering he accomplished it with little more than one pitch in his arsenal.

A pitch he believes came from God.

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com

Spending on residential construction in August was up 0.6% over July. Best of all, spending on single-family home building was up 1.7% for the month.

According to Core Logic’s index, U.S. home prices posted a 3.7% annual price increase in August, the biggest since February. They forecast the annual price gain will come in at 3.4% in August next year.

Realtor.com reports homes have spent the same amount of time on the market as last year for the past four weeks. That shows there’s still a pool of eager buyers making their way through the tight supply of homes for sale.

Every child deserves a champion – an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be. ~ Rita Pierson

I was nine when I arrived at the Children’s Home in Nashua, New Hampshire, in 1965. I failed third grade that year, barely made it through a second time, and had squeaked through fourth grade by the time I reached Pauline Jambard’s fifth-grade class at Charlotte Avenue Elementary School.

I was convinced I wasn’t “smart” like the other kids, and I hoped I could make it through fifth grade. Ms. Jambard took an instant liking to me.

Of all the subjects in school, reading was my favorite. She would tell me, “Terry, you keep reading. If you can understand what you’re reading, you’ll be smarter than most kids.”

After I read all the books in our program, I started reading the classroom’s set of Encyclopedia Britannica. I couldn’t find enough to read, and I started to really like school.

That December, the children’s home threw a Christmas party for family and community members. My brother and I had no family to invite. I still remember looking up and seeing Ms. Jambard walk through the front doors of the children’s home and realizing she was there to see me. That was the best Christmas of my life.

After I graduated from Ms. Jambard’s class in 1969, my brother and I moved, and I lost all touch with my teacher. In 1983, I was on a business trip and had to drive through Nashua. I took a chance and dropped by Charlotte Avenue Elementary. I was walking toward her classroom when she came out in the hallway and said, “Terry!” It was as if I had never left. I was in seventh heaven on my flight home.

We have stayed in touch, and I call Pauline at least once a year. Because of the confidence she instilled in me, I went on to have a successful career in engineering and law enforcement. I don’t know if Pauline realizes how much she helped me, but I’ll never forget her kindness and faith in me. ~ Terry Fallon

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com