“The long-awaited day of reckoning is here,” Chris Farrell wrote in Forbes this week. “The era of historically low interest rates is over.” Mortgage interest rates began to increase in the first week of May, going from 3.35% to the headline-grabbing rate of 4.36% as of Friday.

What happened? Last Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that if the economy continued to improve, the government would stop buying $85 billion in bonds each month by mid-2014. The stock market lost 3% of its value in three days.

Everyone wants to know how American home buyers will react to the rate increase, but it usually takes months for people to buy a home, and months more for records of such sales to become public.

In the meantime, the real estate industry remains bullish; confidence among home builders hit a seven-year high last week. READ MORE …

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Thank you for visiting the blog site of the Staten Island Board of REALTORS® (SIBOR)

The Staten Island Board of REALTORS® (SIBOR) is the largest not-for-profit trade association inStaten Island, N.Y.

SIBOR exists to enhance the ability and opportunity of its members to conduct their business successfully and ethically; and to promote the preservation of the public’s right to own, transfer and use real property.

Comprised of over 1,600 members, SIBOR serves real estate agents, brokers and affiliated professionals throughout the borough and surrounding areas.

SIBOR is the provider of the Staten Island Multiple Listing Service Inc. (SIMLS),which works as a clearinghouse through which more than 250 local real estate firms exchange information on properties they have listed for sale. Together, its members participate in over 3,000 real estate transactions every year.

All SIBOR members belong to the New York State Association of REALTORS® (NYSAR) and the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR).

SIBOR may be reached at 718-928-3220 and viewed online at http://siborrealtors.com. SIBOR may also be visited on Facebook at “Staten Island Board of Realtors,” on Twitter via @SIBOR, and on YouTube at the Staten Island Board of Realtors and RelevantPR channels.

SIBOR Media Contact: Barton Horowitz

Relevant Public Relations, LLC

Headquarters: 718‑682‑1509

Mobile: 917‑715‑8761

Email: Bhorowitz@RelevantPR.com