A new analysis suggests that home prices will begin to rise later this year.
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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 …
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 …
Top 10 Consumer Complaints
What’s getting consumers up in arms lately? Check out the list that follows. Working with various state, local, and federal consumer agencies, the Consumer Federation of America has gathered and sifted through more than 252,000 …
The Catch for a Half-Priced Luxury Rental? You Have to Fix the Place Up
Banks in Florida are having a hard time selling the many abandoned luxury properties now in their possession due to foreclosure. To get the homes in better shape in order to attract buyers, the properties are being rented out for …
Are You Sure You Can Rent Out Your Condo?
Condominium owners are a very specific breed: willing, if not eager, to give up the privacy of a single-family house in exchange for handing over the burdens of maintenance, lawn-mowing and pool-cleaning to someone else.
A Brief List of Goods and Services at All-Time High Prices
It’s not your imagination. You really are being asked to pay like never before for everyday expenses.
Housing Studies: Rent Is Too Damn High, Mortgages Too Damn Confusing
A new study from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies reveals that one out of every four American renters—10.1 million households in total—spends more than half of its income on rent and utilities. Another 26.2% spends between 30% and 50% of household income on rent and utilities.
Marrying for Love? How About Not Marrying Because of the Economy
According to recently released Census data, the percentage of young adults (ages 25 to 34) who have never married has been on a steady rise over the past decade, from 34.5% in 2000 to 43.9% in 2008. In 2009, with the full onset of the recession—and apparently, with widespread feelings that getting married was a bad idea amid an …
Discussion Time: 5 Juicy Online Convos Loaded with Comments from Consumers
Including: Do you regularly run into people who make you wonder how they can afford an iPhone?
Tips! 84 Fresh and Frugal Ones!
Cheap date ideas, tactics for negotiating with your landlord, ways your phone isn’t as dumb as you think, reasons life would be better if it was more like Monopoly, days of the year when people hand you stuff for free, and more.