Back in November, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit against one of the nation’s largest providers of seller-financed homes after it failed to comply with a subpoena to turn over documents related to home foreclosures. This week, a judge upheld the Bureau’s authority to request the documents from Harbour Portfolio Advisors. [More]
homes
Airbnb Hosts Having Difficulty Refinancing Homes
By 8.30.16
Until recently, home loans generally covered two types of properties: primary residences or investments. That was before services like Airbnb allowed anyone with an extra room to make a bit of extra money by renting it out for short periods of time. This blurred line between “my house” and “my investment” is causing trouble for some homeowners when they go to refinance their mortgages. [More]
No, This Denver Broncos Fan Isn’t Trying To Sell His House For Super Bowl Tickets
By 1.27.16
In yet another example of why you can’t trust everything you read, a Colorado man is trying to set the record straight so his phone stops ringing: despite an ad in Denver-area papers that indicated otherwise, he is not selling his house in exchange for a pair of tickets to Super Bowl 50. [More]
Homeowner Goes Away For 8 Months, Returns To Find Town Has Demolished His House
By 11.3.15
When you leave home for an extended period, you probably lock the doors up tight, maybe turn on an alarm, and expect that the house will still be standing upon your return. Which is why one Long Island homeowner was shocked, to say the least, when he returned after eight months away to find his home had disappeared entirely. [More]
Home-Builders Glad People Have Jobs Again, Can’t Find Enough Workers To Build Houses
By 9.17.15
For most of the last decade, people haven’t been all that interested in building new houses: they were worried about their jobs, didn’t have jobs, or were underwater on the mortgage on their current home. While the economy has improved enough that people feel confident building houses, it’s also improved enough that it’s hard to find construction workers. [More]
Create A Delicious Dessert, Win California Woman’s $390K Home
By 7.21.15
In the latest string of popular “create something, win huge reward” contests, a California woman is offering up her refurbished 1906 Craftsman home — valued at $390,000 — to the person who can come up with a winning dessert recipe. [More]
New York Homeowners Evicting 1 Million Bees Living In Their House
By 6.26.15
A house with 40,000 bees? Sure, that sounds crazy. But homeowners in New York have that story beat, after finding an estimated one million bees buzzing around in the siding of their home. [More]
Owner Finds His Rental Home Has Been Rigged To Explode At The Flip Of A Switch
By 3.25.15
Talk about nightmares: The owner of a house that he’d been renting out had a close call recently when an inspection revealed that the place had been rigged to blow up when a light switch was flipped. Because that kind of intricate wiring isn’t a mistake, police are now investigating. [More]
Man Desperate To Sell Home Will Accept An iPhone 6 For It
By 10.8.14
With a house languishing on the market in Detroit, one homeowner who claims he paid way too much in 2010 — $41,000 — is so desperate to unload the property, he’s willing to give it up for a song. Let me clarify: This “song” comes in a white box and makes phone calls, connects to the Internet… Okay, it’s an iPhone 6, and that’s all he’s asking for. [More]
Supreme Court Sides With Homeowner: Just Because It Floats Doesn’t Mean It’s A Boat
By 1.16.13
It’s always fun when judges get a bit creative in how they phrase decisions, and in the case of a fight over whether a floating home counts as a boat, and would therefore be regulated under federal admiralty laws, the U.S. Supreme Court got pretty sassy. The court sided with the owner of a floating home, saying just because it floats, doesn’t make it a boat. [More]
Texan Refuses To Evacuate Home Close To Wildfire
By 4.22.11
When authorities advise you to abandon your home to flee an oncoming natural disaster, things tend to not work out so well if you stick around. But a defiant Texas man is taking his chances, standing pat at his house even though a raging wildfire is encroaching on his property. [More]
Man Who Torched Car To Save Home Ends Up In Court
By 3.24.11
A Utah man had a bold plan, which we told you about last year. His house was going into foreclosure unless he could come up with $21,638.02 to pay HSBC. So he announced to the world that he would burn his car and post the video online in exchange for donations. He raised about $15,000 and even sold $1,200 worth of advertising on the side of the car. He tried to work with local fire departments to get them to let him burn the car, to no avail. So he did it on public land and now he’s in court and getting fined, reports KSL. [More]
House Prices Sink To Lowest Level Since 2002
By 3.22.11
House prices are dropping like game-winning Derrick Williams and-ones, reportedly now sinking in February to an average of $156,100, the lowest point since 2002. [More]
Detroit Mayor Offers $1,000 Homes To Cops, Firemen
By 2.8.11
In a bold offer that speaks volumes about Detroit’s housing market as well as its state of public safety, the city’s mayor has offered to provide homes for as little as $1,000 to police and firefighters. [More]
Whopping 11% Of US Homes Are Empty
By 2.1.11
The vacancy sign is blazing over house divisions across the US. About 1 in 10 houses in America have no one living inside them, according to new data from the Census, CNBC reports. (Update: while technically correct, this number includes other kinds of properties like abandoned farm house. The more typically used number, the home-vacancy rate, is 2.7%, up from 2.5% the previous quarter). [More]
Developers Spiking Homeowner Contracts With Hidden Resale Fee Covenants
By 9.13.10
Last April, Techdirt pointed out that a financial firm in Texas was trying to attach “private transfer fees” to homes, so that developers would get a little bit of each sale as it passed among owners in the years to come. It sounded crazy then–imagine having to pay royalties on clothes or furniture whenever you resold them–but the firm is aggressively expanding its plan and has signed up more than 5,000 developers across the country, reports the New York Times. If you buy a new house in the next decade, look for a “resale fee” covenant hidden in a separate document that might not be included in your closing papers or even require a signature. [More]
Couple Says Real Estate Agent Used Their Home For Sex
By 8.23.10
Earlier this month, a couple in Minnesota filed a lawsuit against a local Coldwell Banker franchise and a real estate agent the company employed, alleging that the agent used the home for sexcapades while they were out of town, ruining their furniture, bedding and carpet. Neighbors say he showed up one day with an unidentified man and said they were going to be preparing the home for an open house, but no open house was held. Or at least not one the neighbors could see; maybe he uses that phrase in a different way. [More]
Bank Of America Is Having A Hard Time Accepting This Whole Death Thing
By 8.18.10
Dave can’t get Bank of America to accept that his parents are gone, even after sending over the death certificates. He keeps telling the bank to take the house, because nobody in his family wants it and the mortgage is underwater. Bank of America keeps threatening his parents with letters about how behind they are on payments. Oh sure, everything about this story is funny on the surface, but not when Bank of America tries to extract money from a closed account you once shared with your dad, forcing it to re-open and siphon funds from your real accounts. [More]
