Savvy homeowners know that a penny here and a penny there adds up. That’s apparently the case for Facebook founder Mark …
refinancing
10 Ways to Improve Your Financial Health (Even If You Only Do One)
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 …
Plotting the Future of Fannie and Freddie
One of the many cans being kicked down Washington’s boulevards these days is the government conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, Congress and the Bush administration …
Is the $25 Billion Foreclosure Settlement a Stealth Bank Bailout?
Three Cheers and Three Jeers for $25 Billion Foreclosure Settlement
A key step was taken yesterday in moving the country beyond the housing crisis, a crisis that triggered the worst recession in decades and whose lingering effects continue to hinder the nation’s nascent recovery. The deal, which …
White House Announces $25 Billion Mortgage Settlement
This post was updated at 1:25pm
It’s been a long slog, but government officials and representatives from major U.S. banks have come to terms on a settlement that would put an end to federal and state investigations into …
A Look Inside President Obama’s New Housing Proposals
President Obama held a rally yesterday in Falls Church, Virginia, where he provided more details concerning his plan, mentioned briefly in his state of the union speech, to stabilize the housing market. The centerpiece of the plan is a new program that would expand HARP to many homeowners whose loans are not backed by government-owned …
Is Freddie Mac Betting Against the American Homeowner?
The non-profit investigative journalism organization ProPublica, in cooperation with National Public Radio, published a story yesterday revealing that Freddie Mac, the government-owned mortgage financier, has recently been …
The Neverending Bailout: The U.S. Is Still Owed $133 Billion from Crisis Fund
If you thought the bank bailout that started in late 2008 was long gone, you would be far from wrong. The special investigator for TARP, the government fund that was created in the wake of the financial crisis, released a report …
Does Obama Finally Have a Plan to Fix the Housing Mess?
Perhaps the single biggest headwind the American economy faces, rivaled only by unemployment, is the dismal housing market. American’s biggest source of wealth has been decimated over the past six years, so it was no surprise …
Obama’s Student Loan Plan to Offer Welcome Debt Relief
In a move sure to be popular with recent college graduates, the Obama Administration released details of a plan Tuesday that will ease the burden of student loan debt.