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Posted
Aug 29 2008, 11:40 AM
by
Karen Datko
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Congratulations are due to blogger Lynnae, who recently realized her personal version of the American dream: She and her husband have bought their first house. "I'm now the proud owner of my own home, and in more debt than I've ever been in my life! It feels good!" she wrote. How can she be happy about debt, when so many others are ruing their home-purchasing decisions? Lynnae and Jim bucked the trend: They waited for prices to fall and made an offer on a house they can actually afford -- even if they were ever forced to swing it on one income.
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Posted
Aug 13 2008, 06:13 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Financially stressed homeowners hoping to benefit from the federal housing bailout should be glad that Kyle at Rather Be Shopping is not in charge. While people who seek help through the plan will have to show they can afford to make (newly reduced) mortgage payments, Kyle has a different set of questions they'd have to answer before getting help. Among them would be: How much do you spend on vacations? What kind of car do you drive, and what kind of clothes do you buy? In other words, are you responsible with your money?
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Posted
May 06 2008, 03:29 PM
by
Karen Datko
If you don't want your house to sell, make sure it looks like some of the houses featured at snarky I Can't Sell My House, a blog that's essentially a pictorial history of our current housing woes. You know that look -- a Christmas tree still on the curb four months after the holiday season, an overgrown lawn, or a few grocery carts parked near the driveway. Inside, make sure buyers can immediately identify what kind of pet you have -- just by gently inhaling. If you really want to sell your house in this tough market, read The Wisdom Journal's "52 tips to make your home irresistible to buyers." Ron shares more than the obvious in this post.
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Posted
May 01 2008, 12:49 PM
by
Karen Datko
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It used to be that if you wanted to buy a house, you simply talked to a lender. "This is nice, if you have an honest, unbiased broker," writes Jonathan at My Money Blog. "This is also how people got talked into 0% down, subprime adjustable-rate mortgages." If you are thinking about, saving for or on the verge of buying a house, we strongly recommend that you read Jonathan's two-part series on shopping for a mortgage. We've been through the house-buying process three times and wish we could have read these posts before we did.
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Posted
Apr 02 2008, 12:11 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Mike at Clever Dude makes an amazing confession for a personal-finance blogger. He and his wife bought a house with an interest-only mortgage and no money down "because we wanted more than we could afford," he admits. Not only that, but "I can directly blame ourselves for not understanding the terms of our loans," he says. He depended on the mortgage broker to do the math, rather than educate himself about what he was getting into. "So I accept full blame for my shortsightedness, laziness and ignorance," he writes. (Luckily for them, they've still built up some equity.) Thus begins his examination of why he made uninformed decisions.
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Posted
Mar 10 2008, 12:48 PM
by
Karen Datko
Lots has been written about whether this is the right time to buy a house, but regardless of your decision, you should know this: The past has became the present, and the pre-housing boom guidelines for how much house you can afford are now back in play. So says Michael B. Rubin of Beyond Paycheck to Paycheck. In case you've forgotten the guidelines, we'll give you a little refresher. What should your down payment be? The boom answer was: "Those loose coins in your car and in your couch? That's plenty!" Michael writes. The "way it is and ought to be: You should be able to put at least 20% down."
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Posted
Dec 18 2007, 12:38 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
In case you missed the news, the Federal Reserve Board has proposed rules to curb the type of lending abuses that helped create the subprime-mortgage debacle. You can read the mainstream media report or you can enjoy Sellsius' snarky take on "More rules for those who hate rules." For instance, one of the rules would restrict prepayment penalties. Sellsius says: "It does not take much to figure out that steep penalties for paying off a loan early would limit consumers' refinancing options. Hmm ... you don't pay back the bank, they're unhappy; you pay them back early, they're still unhappy. You just can't please some people."
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Posted
Dec 17 2007, 06:41 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly. Should you buy a house or continue to save for retirement? Balancing your present and your future can be difficult, especially where housing is concerned. HouseMath 2.0 is a Web-based app designed to help users explore the costs of purchasing a new home. You enter the numbers for the proposed transaction, and HouseMath runs the numbers to let you know the financial implications. Rather than bombard the user with a bunch of numbers, though, the program provides an easy-to-understand narrative summary.
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Posted
Dec 11 2007, 08:05 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from Mark Huffman at partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com. A stroll through the Scam Alerts archives finds it's been Christmastime all year for the world's scam artists. The Federal Trade Commission tells us that scams hit 30.2 million adults -- 13.5 percent of the adult population -- during the last year for which it has added up its complaints. While the FTC's latest figures are for 2006, there's no reason to think the number declined in 2007. Human ingenuity is constantly on the prowl, after all, seeking new ways to fleece the unwary, the gullible and those looking to get rich quickly. It's not just the greedy and the gullible who get taken. The poor and desperate also are falling victim to modern-day bandits -- those in grimy boiler rooms as well as corporate board rooms. The dictionary definition of a "scam" is "a fraudulent business scheme designed to make a quick profit." In making our list and checking it twice, we combed our database of nearly 300,000 consumer complaints to find the scams that made great strides forward, roping in new victims and increasing their take in 2007. So, here they are -- ConsumerAffairs.com's Top 10 Scams of 2007:
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Posted
Dec 10 2007, 01:56 PM
by
Karen Datko
Who's to blame for the subprime-mortgage debacle? Personal-finance bloggers are casting a wide net, and home buyers who borrowed more than they can afford are not slipping through the holes. No Credit Needed doesn't own a home. It's provided by NCN's employer as part of a compensation package. From that detached perspective, NCN offers a clear-eyed examination of how so many people got into such severe debt. "What amazes me -- and what continues to frustrate me -- is that when I watch television reports about the mortgage mess, or when I read an article about the subprime situation, no one ever suggests that the underlying problem is that people are addicted to borrowing money," NCN writes. "Is it really surprising that we find ourselves in this situation?"
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