It's no secret that higher gas prices are one of the factors hurting our local housing market. Culpeper seems to "get" this in a way other local jurisdictions haven't yet.

They're hard at work at getting another Amtrak train. See this Culpeper Star Exponent article for more details. If you haven't gotten involved yet, this is worth your time! Sign the petition!

The Culpeper Rail Coalition, part of the larger Piedmont Rail Coalition is leading the local efforts. Opportunities to get involved are detailed on their web site.

It's certainly been a dramatic day. It started by waking up to the news of Asian markets showing dramatic downturns over fears of a US recession. Then, before our markets opened, the Fed cut both the Fed funds rate and the discount rate by 3/4 of a point. That's dramatic for two reasons. First of all the size of the cut is larger than anything seen in about two decades. Secondly, it's highly unusual for the Fed to cut rates outside of a scheduled meeting. That's especially true when the meeting is only a week away!

It was nice to see the Fed mentioning concern about the housing market as one of the reasons behind today's cut. Having the Fed continue to focus on this industry can only be a good thing for homeowners.

Now, the question is how will it impact our current market. The place you're likely to see an impact first is on home equity lines of credit. Those rates will probably move down pretty quickly. Mortgage interest rates in general, as I've mentioned before here, aren't directly linked to either the Fed funds or discount rates. So we'll have to watch and see what happens to mortgage rates. But the size and timing of this cut do have the potential to have some impact.

One thing to keep your eye on is Wall Street's reactions. Since inflation worries can and do impact mortgage interest rates that will play into the equation. The fact that oil prices continue to fall today is good news there.

There are some hopeful signs here. And I suspect there will be some buyers influenced to make a move now. I've certainly seen increased activity on my attractively priced listings. There seems good reason now to expect that to continue.