Daily Market Update: Mortgage rates decrease after four-week increase

Freddie Mac: Mortgage rates lower… New York set to become most important for world’s wealthy… Realtors among the ‘most phished’… Texas construction and real estate workers happiest?

Freddie Mac: Mortgage rates lower
Average fixed-rate mortgage rates have moved lower for the first time in four weeks and are around the level of May 2013. That’s according to the latest Primary Mortgage Survey from Freddie Mac, which revealed an average rate of 3.75% for a 30-year fixed rate loan, down from 3.80 per cent last week. For 15-year FRM’s the average is 3.03, down from 3.07; 5-year ARMs averaged 2.96, down from 2.99; and 1-year ARM’s were unchanged at 2.44%.
 
New York set to become most important for world’s wealthy
Knight Frank’s annual wealth report shows the 40 cities that are considered the most important to some of the richest people in the world.

The league table looks at the quality of life for those with net assets above $30 million. London, New York and Hong Kong are the current top three with Asia and Europe dominating the top 40 but Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Boston also feature. Crucially the report predicts a huge influx of wealthy residents to New York over the next ten years with more than a thousand rich people taking the city to the top of the list by 2025.  Read the full list.
 
Realtors among the ‘most phished’
The real estate industry was one of the three most-targeted sectors by email ‘phishing’ scams in January. The latest edition of the Symantec Intelligence Report reveals that phishing emails increased to 42 per day at the start of the year compared to 33 per day in December. Along with real estate, insurers and financial businesses were the top targets with 29 per cent of all phishing emails being sent to one of the three sectors. Names, addresses and government IDs, such as social security numbers, were most often stolen. Read the full report.
 
Texas construction and real estate workers happiest?
Texas dominates the league of the best companies to work for in the construction and real estate industry. There are just four companies from the sector in the latest Fortune ‘best companies’ list and all but one is in the Lone Star State. Camden Property Trust, based in Houston, is the highest placed at number 10; David Weekley Homes of Houston is at number 14; and TD Industries of Dallas is number 83.

The only other firm from the industry to make the top 100 is Denver’s PCL Construction. The Fortune survey looks at firm’s compensation packages, diversity and perks among the metrics that decide the league table.