(NEW YORK) — The housing market has been unforgiving to first-time buyers like Kirstin Harris.
“You have to be so competitive,” she told ABC News. “By the time we even like a house to put in an offer, it’s already gotten an offer that’s been accepted.”
Harris and her family are trying to purchase their first home in Virginia. But like many other buyers nationwide, she’s facing surging prices and bidding wars — fueled by strong demand and a lack of available homes.
“The new inventory that I’m seeing coming on has been increased by about $50,000,” she said.
In a cutthroat and pricey market, aspiring homeowners now face a new challenge: rising interest rates.
At its meeting next month, the Federal Reserve is set to increase borrowing costs by raising interest rates as part of an attempt to cool surging inflation.
“Basically, we have inflation because there’s too much demand in the economy for the available supply,” Brookings Institution senior fellow David Wessel told ABC News. “So the whole point of the Fed is to slow the increase in demand. They want fewer people to borrow and they want people who borrow to borrow less.”
Interest rates have already been rising in anticipation of the Fed’s announcement.
The rate on a 30-year-fixed mortgage spiked above 4 percent this month for the first time in nearly three years. According to consumer financial services company Bankrate, that means someone borrowing $300,000 to buy a home today is paying $143 more every month than in November, when rates were closer to 3 percent.
“It definitely makes it more unaffordable,” Washington, D.C.-based realtor Roger Taylor told ABC News.
Rates are still low by historical standards; a 30-year-fixed mortgage rate was near 5 percent in mid-2018.
But Taylor said first-time homebuyers already overwhelmed by sky-high home prices are trying to lock in a purchase now before rising rates increase up their monthly payments even more.
“We saw that a large number of people started giving us calls in January because of these rate increases,” he said, adding the typically-busy spring housing market “came early.”
Real estate brokerage Redfin reported 55 percent of homes that went under contract in the past month had an accepted offer within two weeks on the market. Taylor said many houses sell in a matter of hours.
“It’s insane,” he said. “Right now inventory is really low and competition is pretty high.”
The intense competition is only making it more difficult for a generation of first-time buyers to get a foothold in the housing market.
Thirty-four-year-old C.J. Reaves moved from Virginia to Georgia when the pandemic hit and his work as a digital live operator went remote, hoping to buy his first home.
“The homes have increased at least 30 to 50 thousand [dollars],” Reaves told ABC News. “I feel like to be comfortable and not live check to check, I think I’m going to move more in a cheaper area and so I can live comfortably.”
He’s now looking for a home in North Carolina.
“I was supposed to go see one home, and I thought that was going to be the home,” he said. “Literally it was gone by the time I sent it to my realtor.”
Reaves added he’s keeping a close watch on how rising rates could affect his monthly payments if he is able to put in an offer.
“You must be paying attention to interest rates, he said. “Or, you know, you could find yourself in a hole.”
(NEW YORK) — In response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize the separatist-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine as “independent” states, President Joe Biden announced sanctions against Russia in an effort to deter it from launching a full-scale invasion into Ukraine.
Biden on Tuesday called Putin’s decision “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine” and warned that the sanctions could grow more severe.
“As Russia contemplates its next move, we have our next move prepared as well,” Biden said. “Russia will pay an even steeper price if it continues its aggression, including additional sanctions.”
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian state TV that Russia was already “used to” sanctions and that it believes more sanctions would be imposed on Moscow regardless of what it does.
“That our [Western] colleagues are trying to push the blame on Russia for the failure of the Minsk agreements, we also understand,” he said, referring to a truce Ukraine and separatists signed in 2014. “Our European, American, British colleagues won’t stop and won’t calm down as long as they haven’t exhausted their possibilities for the so-called punishment of Russia.”
What are economic sanctions?
Economic sanctions are defined by the Council on Foreign Relations as the withdrawal of customary trade and financial relations for foreign and security policy purposes. The sanctions can be comprehensive, which prohibit economic activity with an entire country, or targeted, which block transactions by and with specific individuals, businesses or groups.
These restrictions are placed on individuals or entities and prevent them from doing business with the country imposing those sanctions. Sanctions put in place by the U.S. government cut off an individual or entities from the American financial system, meaning they can no longer do business in the U.S. and all their assets under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen.
Americans and American businesses are also prohibited from doing business with these institutions, unless authorized by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Sanctions aim to impair the ability of the person or entity from being able to perform basic functions in the international financial system. They are used by the U.S. government depending on foreign policy and national security goals.
What sanctions did the US impose on Russia?
Sanctions were placed on two Russian state-owned financial institutions and five Kremlin-connected elite.
The financial institutions targeted are the Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs, which is known as Vnesheconombank (VEB), and Promsvyazbank Public Joint Stock Company (PSB), along with 42 of their subsidiaries.
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, VEB is crucial to Russia’s ability to raise funds, and PSB is critical to Russia’s defense sector. The two institutions and their subsidiaries hold combined assets worth tens of billions of dollars.
“Today’s action constrains Russia’s ability to finance defense-related contracts and raise new funds to finance its campaign against Ukraine,” the Department of Treasury said in a statement Tuesday.
VEB has an asset portfolio of $53 billion, making it one of Russia’s top five financial institutions, according to the Treasury Department. Some of VEB’s sanctioned subsidiaries include banks and other financial firms, electronic component producers and a coal mining group in Russia and three other countries.
It is a servicer of Russia’s sovereign debt, a financier for exports and a funding source for investment projects with a loan portfolio of over $20 billion.
VEB finances Russia’s national economic development, including large-scale projects to develop domestic infrastructure and other industries critical to Russia’s generation of revenue.
PSB, Russia’s eighth-largest bank, was designated by the government to finance the Russian Ministry of Defense and defense sector, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury. It services nearly 70% of Russia’s defense contracts and provides banking and personal finance to Russian military personnel.
Seventeen of PSB’s subsidiaries were also sanctioned, including financial, technology and real estate-related entities.
Influential Russians and their family members who are in Putin’s inner circle and believed to be participating in the Russian regime’s “kleptocracy” — including the chairman and CEO of PSB — were also sanctioned, the Department of Treasury said.
“Today’s actions, taken in coordination with our partners and allies, begin the process of dismantling the Kremlin’s financial network and its ability to fund destabilizing activity in Ukraine and around the world,” Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said.
“We continue to monitor Russia’s actions and if it further invades Ukraine, the United States will swiftly impose expansive economic sanctions that will have a severe and lasting impact on Russia’s economy,” she said.
Will the sanctions have an effect?
The sanctions put in place were not the most severe option available. They targeted institutions specific to raising funds and Russia’s defense sector, instead of institutions that ordinary Russians use.
“The measures today will have a measured impact on the Russian financial system. VEB is a significant bank, but it’s not the bank that banks everyday Russians. It’s a little more niche,” said Julia Friedlander, a former Treasury Department official who worked on sanctions policy.
She said not putting in place the most severe sanctions right away serve as a tactic.
“The idea is that you can’t blow all your options at once,” Friedlander, who is now a fellow at the Atlantic Council, said. “If you blow all your fire now, then what is Russia’s incentive to hold back?”
Sanctions that could be the most impactful would target Russia’s largest banks — like the state-owned banks that cover more than half of the Russian financial system — and the energy sector, Maria Shagina, a sanctions expert who specializes in Russia and Eastern Europe, told ABC News.
Sanctions on major banks could impact ordinary Russians, Shagina said. Sanctions on the current production of oil and gas could also have an impact, but the U.S. and Europe could also see spikes in prices. If future production is sanctioned, it would be less impactful, Shagina said.
White House officials have said they are considering targeting Russia’s largest banks. Experts told ABC News that hitting those big state-owned banks — Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank and Rosselkhozbank — would mark a major escalation in the United States’ response.
“There’s a lot more banks out there that have a much larger role in the economy,” said Andrew Lohsen, a former officer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine.
Russia has been preparing for sanctions, he said. Sberbank has reportedly been testing its ability to survive without access to Western software. It also has hundreds of billions in foreign currency reserves and in a national wealth fund.
“The Russian economy has worked to sanction-proof itself since 2014,” Lohsen, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ABC News. “But at the end of the day, my concern is that Russia will just force its citizens to tighten its belts and will just proceed with this empire building project that it’s set for itself in Ukraine.”
He questioned whether the sanctions put in place will be enough to deter Russia.
“Can anything deter Putin,” he said, “short of return fire?”
H.E.R. is continuing her 2021 Back of My Mind Tour with 19 dates this spring that begin April 8 in Honolulu. Other cities the trek will visit include New Orleans, Denver, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Los Angeles, before it wraps up June 19 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Tickets will go on sale Friday, February 25, at 10 a.m. local time via Ticketmaster.com.
“I’ve been so eager to connect with my fans this year, so it’s great to get back on the road,” the 24-year-old entertainer says in a statement. “Being on stage fuels me as a musician and I can’t wait to feel that energy again!”
H.E.R. also will perform at Jazz in the Gardens festival on March 15 near Miami, and she’ll be opening for Coldplay on their 2022 world tour. That trek’s U.S. leg kicks off May 6 in Dallas, and continues through June 14 in Tampa, Florida. The tour then travels to Europe and South America.
Meanwhile, H.E.R. leads all musical artists with six nominations for the NAACP Images Awards, which air Saturday at 8 p.m. on BET. On March 2, she’ll receive the American Express Impact Award at the Billboard Women in Music Awards. The Oscar and Grammy winner is being recognized as “an artist who uses their musical platform to create positive change while advocating on behalf of women in and beyond the music industry.”
H.E.R. has a chance to further add to her trophy room at this year’s Grammy Awards, where she’s nominated for eight honors, including Album of the Year for Back of My Mind, and Song of the Year for “Fight for You.” She’s also diversifying her career with her first major film role, in the new musical version of The Color Purple, also starring Taraji P. Henson and Fantasia.
While the weather may still be chilly and gray, Dolly Parton’s Dollywood theme park is already looking ahead to summer.
Specifically, the park’s family water park, Splash Country, will be revamped and remodeled when it opens this year. Little Creek Falls, the pool area geared toward the youngest visitors, has been reimagined as a splash pad where babies and toddlers can play. It’ll feature new pop jets, flowers and other colorful attractions; plus, the butterfly shade structures are getting a colorful makeover and some will be used to shade the play area.
Elsewhere, the slides on Bear Mountain Fire Tower are getting a fresh paint job, and The Cascades — a pool area with zero-depth entry for young swimmers — is changing its color to match the waters of the surrounding Smoky Mountains, as opposed to its prior lagoon-like hue.
Other kinds of beautification are also underway at the park, including deep-cleaning initiatives, landscaping, tree trimming and more. All that hard work will pay off come May, when the park opens for the season.
Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman are a power couple when it comes to artistic talent: He’s a superstar country performer and one of the genre’s most skilled guitarists, while she’s an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award-winning actor.
It’s no surprise that the couple’s two daughters, 13-year-old Sunday Rose and 11-year-old Faith Margaret, are already showing aptitude for the arts, too.
Faith is perhaps the most likely to follow in her dad’s musical footsteps, Keith explains. “[She] has a great musical ear,” he says. “I can tell ’cause she’ll hear a melody and go to the little piano and figure it out by singing it and matching the notes and stuff. She’s got a good ear.”
Meanwhile, Sunday’s the film director of the family. “Sunday, I think, has always been interested in filming and making little stories with her little iPad,” Keith continues.
He explains, “Even when she was five, six years old, she liked to film with her iPad. Kids from the neighborhood will come over for play dates, and I tell you, immediately, they will be roped into being in these mini-movies that she makes. They’ve got to learn their parts and everything.”
Like any proud parent, Keith is hoping to encourage both his children to pursue their artistic interests as they get older.
“It would be great if [Sunday] continues [making movies], ’cause I think she’s a storyteller — a good storyteller,” he notes.
Both Sunday and Faith also made their voice acting debuts in The Angry Birds Movie 2, which came out in 2019.
Greg Doherty/Getty Images for Entertainment Studios
Maroon 5‘s Adam Levine must be tired of showing off all his tattoos on social media, because it appears as though he’s taking the next step…and getting into the tattoo business.
Maroon 5’s and Adam’s Instagram Stories are both teasing something called “Electric Tattoo,” which is “coming March 1.” Adam and tattoo artist Bryan Randolph are both tagged in the posting. Randolph, who seems to be the guy who’s done all Adam’s ink, has a similar posting in which he writes, “Been cooking something up for you.” No word on exactly what “Electric Tattoo” is yet, though.
Meanwhile, Maroon 5 has just announced their first-ever shows in the Middle East. In early May, they’ll be performing in Giza, Egypt, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and Tel Aviv, Israel. According to the Jerusalem Post, Adam, who’s Jewish, once said he had relatives in Israel.
Maroon 5’s World Tour 2022 gets started March 30 in Mexico City.
Long-running label Metal Blade Records is turning 40, and its celebrating with a bit of Metallica history.
Metal Blade has announced a vinyl reissue its debut release, a 1982 compilation titled Metal Massacre Volume One, due out April 22.
Metal Massacre Volume One was originally released to showcase unsigned metal bands in the Los Angeles area, including a very young Metallica. The future Rock & Roll Hall of Famers’ contribution was “Hit the Lights,” notably the first song James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich wrote together.
You can pre-order your reissue of Metal Massacre Volume One, which hasn’t been available on vinyl since 1984, now via MetalBlade.com. A special edition clear vinyl variant will be released exclusively via Metallica.com.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for God’s Love We Deliver
During a recent interview that streamed on TalkShopLive, Nancy Wilson revealed that plans for a new Heart tour were on hold because she and her sister and band mate Ann were at odds over the musicians who would make up the touring version of the group.
Now, Ann Wilson tells ABC Audio that although she and her sister currently aren’t agreeing about Heart’s direction moving forward, she insists that she and Nancy aren’t feuding, and she feels that they eventually will be able to resolve their differences.
“There’s a lot of myth about what’s going on between me and Nancy, that there’s a feud or something like that. There really isn’t any feud between us personally,” Ann says. “We don’t see eye to eye on the shape that Heart should take. Like…I want to see it continue to evolve and break barriers and be relevant. And she…doesn’t want to try new things that much, you know.”
The singer adds, “I’m not trying to diss her at all, because I think we get a really bad rap for just being at each other’s throats. We’re not. We have a disagreement on who would be in the Heart band is all right now, but we’re working on it.”
In the TalkShopLive interview, Nancy explained that Ann had wanted Heart’s backing group to feature the musicians who make up her current solo touring band, The Amazing Dawgs, who also helped Ann record her upcoming solo album, Fierce Bliss, due out in April.
Nancy, meanwhile, says she wanted to continue with the same musicians who toured as Heart with her and Ann in 2019. Nancy has now launched a new group named Nancy Wilson’s Heart with the latter musicians and former Voice contestant Kimberly Nicole as lead singer.
Great news for those who fell in love with History Channel’s popular Vikings series. After the series’ six-season run ended, the next chapter arrives Friday with Vikings: Valhalla, which documents the warriors’ historical battle against the King of England.
Creator Jeb Stuart tells ABC Audio the series takes place 125 years after the events of the original series and will explore the infamous “St. Brice’s Day massacre” of 1002. Stuart says the massacre was orchestrated by the King of England, Aethelred the Unready, who ordered “the genocide of all Vikings living in England… because of immigration.”
Stuart says the king made a “calculated move,” hoping to take his targets by surprise because, at the time, “the Christian Vikings were fighting with the pagan Vikings.” Stuart says the king thought his targets “would be too busy fighting among themselves to pay attention to what was going down in London — and he made a bad decision.”
Stuart says the event united the Vikings — much like how Americans put aside their differences to face a common enemy. “You got the Democrats and Republicans, and they’re all fighting at each other’s throats,” he described. “When there’s an attack from the outside, you suddenly become American again. And that’s actually what happened with the Vikings.”
Despite the modern-day comparison, Stuart says Vikings: Valhalla is steeped in history, and he strove to make the series as accurate as possible — even though it was a challenge.
“We take a lot of pride in the authenticity of this story,” he shares. “The Vikings did not have a written language, so it was an oral storytelling tradition. Even what we know about the Vikings, we primarily know about it from their enemies.”
Vikings: Valhalla launches Friday, February 25, on Netflix.
