If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Fed claims that quantitative easing has helped create or save almost 2,000,000 jobs since 2008, and while that may be true, the people could probably find a much better way to spend $40 billion a month and create and save far more jobs.
For the past year there have been worries that the FHA might require taxpayer money to pay off lender claims for loans gone bad. But now it may be that the economy has turned around and the FHA may well do better than anyone thinks.
Congress' attention and action right now: the millions of low-income families who rely upon federal housing assistance to keep a stable roof over their heads and are being threatened with losing access to these funds.
March 16 of this year I received a letter from Bank of America: "Although you have missed several of your monthly payments, it is not too late to get help. Please act quickly before time runs out." I suppose 40-odd missed payments can safely be counted as "several." But time running out? Methuselah should have such a surplus.
The FHFA just announced that it will no longer allow Fannie and Freddie to purchase or guarantee so-called "non-qualified" mortgages with more than 30 years amortization or that have interest only payments, among other restrictions.
Some myths persist even when people ought to know they aren't true. These falsehoods can be fun, unless they are about money -- in which case they can do a great deal of harm. Here are four financial "facts" you should always take with a grain of salt.
When lawmakers in March reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act--the landmark legislation that guarantees certain rights and protections for survivors of domestic violence--they expanded a rule to bar landlords from evicting survivors from any publicly-supported home.
Since 2007, Wall Street has evicted four million families -- approximately ten million people -- from their homes. Millions more are ensnared in ongoing foreclosures.
The love fest between Barack Obama and his top fundraiser Penny Pritzker that has led to her being nominated as Commerce secretary would not be so unseemly if they both just confessed that they did it for the money
Bob Kuttner has been among the country's most visible advocates of stimulus. His new book, Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity versus Possibility is his latest shot at the austerity gang.
On the housing front, the good news is that the president wants Mel Watt to head the FHFA. The really bad news is that the problems in the U.S. housing system are currently so entrenched that, even if he is confirmed, Mel Watt will be hard-pressed to resolve them.
My home. Our homes. Real estate is back... if ever so slightly and I'm excited. Others may shout that "REAL ESTATE IS BACK!" with all the gusto of those almost always incorrect pundits I see on television.
As a parent of a 17 and 20 year old, I understand the balancing act of parenting teens. We still operate under those protective instincts we had when...
All told, about 90,000 Native families are homeless or under-housed on a given night, and Native communities nationwide face an immediate housing shortfall of 200,000 homes.
In 2008, FHA attempted to increase mortgage insurance premiums on low credit scores, and to reject scores less than 500 unless the loan-to-value ratio was 90 percent or less. The proposal was shot down by Congress. Premiums are scheduled to rise this year, but will not be scaled by credit score.
We are wary of used cars salesmen, but how conscious are we of the fact that almost everything we buy is sold to us by a commission-based broker who wins when they convince us to buy more than we came to purchase?
