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Posted
Jun 18 2009, 12:42 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
The people often overlooked in the housing crisis are renters who are forced from their homes by foreclosure. Remember that news story about the sheriff who stopped foreclosure evictions because so many innocent tenants were suddenly made homeless?
Laws vary by city and state, but, generally speaking, a foreclosure nullifies a lease. Your landlord stopped paying the mortgage and, often without notice, you're out on the street.
How many people are we talking about? Lots. A post at Dollars & Sense said, "According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, renters make up an estimated 40% of families facing eviction because of foreclosure."
Finally, there's some help of sorts for renters who face losing their homes.
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Posted
May 19 2009, 01:33 PM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Blogger "Stew" at Gather Little by Little finds himself in a housing situation that he aptly describes as a "pickle," and not the sweet bread and butter kind.
Here are the particulars. Please let us know what you think.
- Stew (who blogs with "Gibble" or "glblguy," the creator of Gather Little by Little), his wife and three small children moved to another state 14 months ago for a new job and are renting a place. They put their previous home on the market.
- That house has not sold and the one renter they had lived there only a short time.
- The $1,000 to $1,200 a month to keep up the mortgage, home-equity loan, taxes, insurance and utilities has drained their savings and most of their retirement accounts.
- The mortgage is now 120% of the value of the house.
- Stew got $14,000 from a balance-transfer credit card deal at 0%, which he calls "wiggle room" money. Yikes.
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Posted
Mar 30 2009, 10:19 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
Scammers have learned that using the name of a legitimate business or organization often helps deceive victims. The National Association of Realtors is warning that its name is being used as part of a property-rental scam.
Victims targeted by scammers are led to believe that NAR is functioning as an intermediary to receive rental deposits from prospective tenants. NAR says nothing could be further from the truth.
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Posted
Mar 24 2009, 09:23 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Frank Curmudgeon at Bad Money Advice.
There was a time when owning the roof over your head was considered an attainable and wholesome mark of prosperity for American families. See, for example, the higher calling for which George Bailey gives up his youth in "It's a Wonderful Life." (In retrospect, George was making subprime loans from a dangerously overleveraged and illiquid bank. It was a simpler time.)
Over the decades, conventional wisdom on homeownership morphed from wholesome goal to sound idea, then to great idea, and finally to such a great idea that it was practically free money.
Then it all went kablooey, and conventional wisdom started denying that it ever said any such thing.
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Posted
Mar 03 2009, 08:52 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
More and more people are placing ads looking for roommates to help share housing costs. Would you be willing to sacrifice privacy if someone helped pay the bills?
"Nickel" at FiveCentNickel asked his readers about the pros and cons. Their experiences varied greatly. Some welcomed the extra company and money, and others suffered through roommates from hell and beyond. Here's what they said:
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Posted
Feb 10 2009, 11:38 AM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Apartment vacancies are climbing across the country, and that puts a renter in the catbird seat. It's a good time to ask for lower rent.
"Broke Grad Student" did. "I asked for what equates to a 4.3% discount on rent, and the owner agreed," he wrote. "It really was that simple."
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Posted
Dec 23 2008, 05:54 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. One of the main reasons I bought a home was because I was tired of moving. I hated packing up my things, renting a truck, moving my things, then unpacking my things. It felt like such wasted effort. However, in my numerous moves, I did establish a great way to come up with a total cost-of-housing metric that helped me compare various housing options. When I first started comparing apartments, I got the basics right. I compared the total rent, I accounted for utilities, and I accounted for any insurance I would need to buy. I failed to recognize commute time and cost, though, which played a significant factor in my first apartment (25 miles one way). That's just one of the considerations I missed. There are several more.
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Posted
Aug 14 2008, 04:40 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Philip Brewer at partner blog Wise Bread. People might look at how I spend money and say I'm cheap or a tightwad. If they do, they're missing the point. The fact is, I'm much more interested in simplicity than I am in saving money. In many cases, it works out about the same: The simple choice is often frugal. The cheapest choice, though, is often not the simple one.
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Posted
Jul 10 2008, 02:04 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
To those readers who have cut spending every which way they can, but find it's not enough, "Tight Fisted Miser" offers an extreme idea -- live in a van. The 40-year-old law student is seriously considering a van-dwelling experience when his apartment lease runs out in the fall.
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Posted
Apr 25 2008, 10:27 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Last weekend I heard the kind of frantic knocking that signals trouble for the resident manager. A tenant was banging on the door to tell me that a second-floor apartment -- not his -- was flooding.
As I ran toward the stairs, I could see moisture dripping from the first-floor hall ceiling. Upstairs, I found that a toilet had blocked and overflowed. Later, a water-damage restoration specialist would estimate it had overflowed for at least three hours.
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