Patrick F. Taylor Science and Technology Academy Ranked No. 1 in Louisiana

The U.S. News & World Report ranked Patrick F. Taylor Science and Technology Academy number 1 in Louisiana. Benjamin Franklin High in New Orleans was the previous number one school. The principal, Sharmeika Daniels credits this accomplishment to the team effort between students, teachers, parents and administrators. Students have described the teachers as life mentors. 

“This is my first experience, ever, that I’ve seen a leadership team, as well as teachers, parents and students, all on the same page,” Daniels said. “We’re a family here, and everybody’s input is important.”

“Teachers are demanding here and the content is rigorous, but that’s what’s going to be expected of the kids when they leave us.”

“There is never going to be a student on this campus [who] goes under the radar,” Daniels said.

The school is a magnet school that has a STEM-based college preparatory curriculum. There are around eight hundred students from the east and west bank of Jefferson Parish who go to the school that is named after the founder and CEO of the Taylor Energy Company. The school starts in the sixth grade where students will start to learn computer programing. Students have to score in the 85th percentile or higher on Jefferson's Advanced Studies Academies admissions test to enroll.

“I will never take for granted how blessed I am to lead such phenomenal faculty and staff,” Daniels said. “All of our teachers are on board. That’s not an easy thing to do, to get a whole group of people to agree on one goal.

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Benefits of Tree Coverage for a Home

 What will shade from tree coverage do for your home?

Increase home value
Keep things cool
Decrease utility bills
Reduce UV exposure
Cut carbon emission

Professionals in the industry will agree that trees and shrubs are not just great for a home's curb appeal but also for social, communal, environmental, and economic benefits. It is said that tree coverage makes for a healthy and happy living environment. Here are some benefits of having tree coverage around your home. 

Increase Home Value

Planting trees and shrubs around your home can increase your home's value. Homes with mature trees are more alluring to prospective buyers. In fact, HGTV reported that the home value increases 7 - 19% if there are mature trees surrounding it. The Arborist News did a study that showed there is a 3 - 5% price increase in homes with trees in the front yard, a 6 - 9% price increase when there are a lot of trees in a neighborhood and a 10 - 15% price increase if there are mature trees in a high-income neighborhood. A Michigan University study reports that landscaping will give you a 109% return on your investment!

Keep Things Cool

Summer heat is not only uncomfortable but is also heavy on utility consumption. Trees are a perfect solution. They are not only beautiful to look at but also an effective cooling measure. Urban areas are usually hotter than the surrounding suburban areas. This is due to the lack of trees, grass, and shrubs in the city. Landscaped areas with trees and turf can be 25 degrees cooler than the asphalt area in the same location. The USDA's Forest Service did a study revealing that  a young tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.

Decrease Utility Bills

This is good for our wallets and the environment. Trees can reduce the temperatures by 6% through shade and adding moisture to the air.  The Center for Urban Forest Research claims that trees planted on the west side of your home can reduce your energy bill costs by 3% over 5 years and 12% within 15 years. Over time, these results can greatly help you make your home more eco-friendly.

Reducing UV Exposure

Shade is your skin's best friend when it comes to reducing bad UV exposure. Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the US according to the American Cancer Society. Trees are a natural sunblock that provides a physical barrier between your skin and the sun. A neighborhood that is covered in trees reduces UV exposure in half!

Cut Carbon Emission

The whole world has seen an increase in global CO2. Trees are extremely important when it comes to the earth's carbon emissions. Trees can store over 708 million tons of carbon, in urban areas trees can store an additional 28.2 million tons of carbon and 100 million mature trees around homes can equal up to $2 billion annually in reduced energy costs.

Remember in order for trees to flourish and help the environment, homeowners need to care for trees and the landscaping around their homes. Experts can give trees a checkup to keep them healthy and keep them going from the roots up.

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Predictions for the 2023 Housing Market

The current housing market has been deemed the Pandemic Housing Boom because of the rise in buyer demand during the pandemic. This coupled with historically low mortgage rates and super low housing inventory caused the home prices to rise drastically. The Fed hopes this will not be the case in 2023.

When the pandemic hit, the Fed started to purchase bonds making the mortgage rates drop to historical lows. The rising inflation has pushed the Fed to start selling bonds which will cause the mortgage rates to rise. Within the past six months, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate went from 3.1% to 5.7%.

The rise in the mortgage rates has cooled off the rise in home prices. Unfortunately, it has also put a damper on many borrowers' dreams of owning a home. Borrowers are having a harder time with the debt-to-income ratios and have lost their mortgage eligibility.

According to Zillow, home prices will jump an additional 9.7% between May 2022 and May 2023 instead of what has been seen over the past year of a rise of 20.4%. This slow down will still be double the average annual home price appreciation of 4.4%. Zillow has changed its views in the last few months cutting its price growth by 8.1% percentage points in the last four months. CoreLogic predicts a slower rise of only 5.3%, while Mortgage Bankers Association predicts a 3.1% and Fannie Mae a 3.2% increase.

"The trend appears to show that the market passed an inflection point for home values between April and May, transitioning from ever-hotter to somewhat-cooler price growth. This deceleration is a clear signal that buyers are dialing back their demand for homes in the face of daunting affordability challenges," wrote Zillow economists in their latest outlook.

Some such as Capital Economics predicts home prices to fall 5%. This has only happened twice in the past
five years. Moody's Analytics believes that there will be a 0% rise in some areas even seeing a 5% to 10% decline in home prices.

"Mortgage rates are rising and will reach 6.5% by mid-2023. As a result, mortgage payments as a share of income will exceed the peak seen in the mid-2000s. That will cut home sales, with existing sales ending 2022 more than 20% down from their end-2021 level. House prices will also decline as affordability constraints bite, but tight markets and a lack of forced sellers means we expect the drop to be relatively modest, with annual growth falling to -5% by mid-2023," wrote Capital Economics in its latest outlook.

"The housing market has peaked. … Everything points to a rolling over of the housing market," says Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi.

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Rising Home Prices Are Clashing With the Slowdown in Economic Growth

 Are rising home prices a wild card for the Federal Reserve?

According to an article posted by Bloomberg, the high home prices are a hitch in the Federal Reserve's plans for the nation's slowing economy. Many say that this is the worst inflation the country has seen in forty years. The Federal Reserve wants to put a stop to the inflation that is currently hurting our economy.

The change is planned to come around September of this year. The goal is to have its policy rate at a level it considers to be restrictive, putting further downward pressure on prices.

In order for this to happen there are several factors that have to align. The three biggest are the country needs to pay three months of declining core inflation, measured month-over-month, the rate of home price appreciation needs to slow down in market price gauges and energy prices need to stay contained. If this does happen, the Fed will be able to slow the rise in interest rates.

The reason the change will not happen until September or later is that Colin Powell wants to witness a slow down in inflation via several reports. The one thing that will stall this is the housing market. Why? Because housing inflation falls behind market prices by several months.

This means that when market prices slow down, the housing market will continue to rise for several months extending into 2023. The housing market is still going strong because of low invetnory.

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