Freddie Mac recently announced that rates for a 30-year mortgage fell to 4.69%, the lowest level since they started keeping track. [More]
real estate
Top 10 Cities Where Owning Is Cheaper Than Renting
By 6.23.10
As home prices continue to stagnate in many markets across the country, renters are facing some tough choices: should they take advantage of low prices and make the move into home ownership, or wait a while longer, on the chance that the market hasn’t yet hit bottom? In some cities, the choice is easier: prices have fallen so much that it’s cheaper to buy than it is to rent. [More]
New Home Sales Down 33%, A New Record
By 6.23.10
The Commerce Department has released figures that show that new home sales have dropped to a record low — down 33% from April. The drop isn’t unexpected, but it does show to what extent the market was being propped up by the tax credit for new home buyers. [More]
1,300 Prison Inmates Received $9 Million In Home Buyer Tax Credit
By 6.23.10
As always happens when the government puts tons of cash up for grabs, scam-happy people will line up to take advantage of it. And a new report says that nearly 10% of the 15,000 folks caught scamming the government for the recent home buyer tax credit were doing it from behind bars. [More]
10 Things To Know Before Buying A Condo
By 6.22.10
Before you jump into buying a condo, there’s 10 questions you should know the answer to: [More]
Shrink Ray Hits Size Of New Single Family Homes
By 6.18.10
When the economy began circling the drain a couple of years back, everything began getting smaller, from the cars we drive to the number of banks we have to choose from. And according to the Census Bureau, even our homes were nailed by the recession shrink ray. [More]
Woman Arrested For Squatting In $3.3 Million Mansion
By 6.16.10
If you’re going to live in a house that doesn’t belong to you, why not make it a luxury home? After all, there are more than a few of them sitting empty these days. And that’s exactly what a woman in Washington state had been doing, at least until she got caught. [More]
There's A Reason You Can Get This House At A Discount
By 6.16.10
Now, many of you don’t know that I have a degree in architecture. So maybe it’s only my keen eye that can discern the minute tectonic details that would make this particular McMansion Lite slightly less expensive than another one. Can your novice senses detect the reason? [More]
Detroit Moving Police & Fire Depts. Into Empty Casino
By 6.11.10
There are a lot of empty buildings in the Detroit area, but the beleaguered city’s mayor announced today that he’s found the perfect vacant space to house HQs for both the city’s police and fire departments — the old MGM Grand Detroit casino. [More]
Couple Discovers Secret Room In New Home, Secretly Filled With Moldy Garbage
By 6.1.10
Every kid talks about how they’re going to have a secret room in his house when they grows up… so imagine the delight of reader Jeannine to discover the house she bought actually came with one! And then imagine how that delight turned to revulsion as she and her partner opened it up and found countless piles of garbage covered with white puffy mold! It would turn out to be only the first of many secrets the house revealed to them, including a basement with 75% secret asbestos tiling! Oh, it’s like something out of a fairy tale! [More]
Got $1.15 Million? 'Amityville Horror' House Is Up For Sale
By 5.25.10
The AP is reporting that the house made famous by the 1979 film “The Amityville Horror” is up for sale. It’s a 5 bedroom Dutch colonial built in 1927, according to the listing. It’s 3600 square feet, with 3.5 baths and a detached two car garage. The boat house is especially nice, in our opinion. [More]
VIDEO: Angry Homeowners Rally Outside BofA Exec's House
By 5.24.10
Embittered homeowners and activists packed the yard of a Bank of America executive on a recent weekend, and they brought their bullhorn. [More]
10% Of Homeowners Just Missed A Mortgage Payment
By 5.20.10
The Mortgage Bankers Association says that if you just missed a morgage payment, you’re not alone — 10% of homeowners just did the same thing. [More]
If You Buy It, They Will Come
By 5.14.10
Looking for a farm with a ballpark on it? Look no more! The family that owns the Field of Dreams cornfield ballpark has decided to sell. The asking price? $5.4 million. [More]
Family Of Four Dies In Sinkhole After Yard Silently Liquefies
By 5.13.10
The bodies of a family of four were found on their couch at the bottom of a crevasse after the area underneath their house suddenly gave way Monday. The culprit was an ancient one, the modern-day after-effects of a 10,000-year old inland sea. [More]
Banks Gone Amok, Unlawfully Foreclosing
By 5.5.10
“Darnit, where was that mortgage modification paper? I knew I put it somewhere. Oh well, let’s just foreclose on these people’s house. STAMP! Whoo, that was tough. Time to treat myself to a Diet Coke.” That’s an imaginative reenactment at what’s going on inside the mortgage departments of the biggest banks in America: total disorganization, the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, a bureaucratic and document-strewn nightmare that can swallow up people’s homes right from under them. [More]
Fix Up Your House Because You Want To Live In It, Not Profit Off Of It
By 5.3.10
The kids over at Consumer Reports are working on their August kitchen-remodeling story and are finding that there is less emphasis on remodeling homes with ROI in mind. [More]
What It's Like To Buy A Short Sale House (Hell, With Benefits)
By 5.3.10
With the housing bubble burst and evaporation of credit, short sales have grown in popularity as debtors behind on their mortgage seek to offload their depreciated property and avoid the derogatory effects a foreclosure can have on their credit report. Ads in the paper and tacked onto telephone poles at intersections scream about the great steals to be had.But what is it actually like to go through this process whereby the bank agrees for the house to be sold at a small loss instead of incurring the sizable fees a full foreclosure would entail? A lot harder than the brightly colored bold letters would have you believe. Long-time reader kyleorton walks us through what he went through to buy his a house listed at $274k via short sale for $229,000, a procedure complicated by Bank of America bureaucracy and a seller’s agent that didn’t feel like doing any work. [More]
