Thanks to cheap home prices and mortgage rates at historic lows, it’s easy to argue that now is the ideal time to buy a home. But many would-be buyers are worried the market hasn’t yet reached bottom, and years of plunging home …
Mortgages
Home Sales Jump as Number of Foreclosures Drops
April housing numbers released by the National Association of Realtors were, wait for it … good. Spring is traditionally a busy season for home sales, but the real estate market has been in such a slump for the past couple of …
What President Obama Wants You To Tell Your Kids About Money — and When
A useful new government website has just gone live, offering easy teaching points for parents who want to help their kids grow up knowing a thing or two about compound interest and 19 other key financial concepts.
For Thousands of Homeowners Behind on BofA Mortgages, Relief May Be in the Mail
Bank of America announced it has begun mailing letters to the first wave of up to 200,000 homeowners who are eligible for mortgage principal reductions, part of a settlement the bank worked out with the federal government and 49 …
Market for Investment and Vacation Homes Has Been Booming
Buyers snatched up houses as investment properties and second homes at an especially fast clip last year. The number of homes purchased for investment purposes rose a whopping 65% in 2011, from 749,000 to 1.23 million …
Housing Math: Buying Is Now Cheaper Than Renting 98% of the Time
As the cost of renting rises and home values keep dropping, it gets easier and easier to figure out whether it’s smarter to buy or rent. A new study indicates that in 98 out of 100 U.S. housing markets, buying is the more …
Could Your Property Taxes Actually Be Getting Cheaper?
Property taxes are based on the value of one’s home. But as the real estate market collapsed and owners watched in horror as home values dropped by one-third, or perhaps half, their property taxes probably didn’t budge. Through …
Mortgage-Skipping Masters: Couple Lives in $1.29 Million Home Without Making Payments for 5 Years
Guess what happens when you stop paying the mortgage? For quite some time, the answer is: Nothing much. In many states, while the foreclosure process drags on for years, homeowners who have stopped paying their bills can live in …
How You Can Fix the Housing Crisis—At Least in Your Own Home
You could wait for the government to fix the housing crisis, or you could simply wait for the housing market to rebound. In either case, though, you might be waiting a long time for anything to happen. Instead of just hoping for …
Struggling to Stay Afloat: Number of Underwater Homeowners Keeps on Rising
Despite signs that some housing markets are improving, the overall trend is for home prices (and values) to keep dropping—and dropping. As values shrink, more and more homeowners find themselves underwater, the unfortunate …
Rent Was Too Damn High. Now It’s Even Higher
The data on housing costs isn’t pretty. Most experts recommend spending no more than one-third of your income on housing, and yet, in a new study, nearly one in four American households now spends more than half of its income on …
Housing Recovery at Last? Evidence Mounts
While experts continue to warn that housing has not yet hit bottom, a slew of indicators suggest otherwise. The latest is a stellar quarterly earnings report from Home Depot, which is benefitting from hopeful owners sprucing up …
