Topic: Foreclosures
Top galleries, list articles, quizzes
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10 best cities to buy short sale homes
Foreclosures are tough: Homeowners lose their houses and ruin their credit, while banks get stuck with vacant, deteriorating real estate for months before selling it at a considerable loss. Increasingly, banks are finding another way: the short sale. Instead of waiting to foreclose, a bank preemptively sells a home at a deep discount and closes out the underwater mortgage, even if the house sells for less than the value of the mortgage. The result: Homeowners shed their mortgage debt, and banks unload properties more quickly and inexpensively. Here are the Top 10 metropolitan areas with the biggest average discounts on these pre-foreclosure homes, according to online foreclosure marketplace RealtyTrac. Can you guess which city is No. 1?
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Top 10 cities where house prices are rising
House prices continue to fall nationwide, but here and there they’ve begun to turn up as Americans return to the housing market. Which 10 metropolitan areas have seen the biggest increase in the past year? The winners, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), include a state capital, a furniture-making center, and a resort that was once America’s foreclosure capital. Can you guess who they are?
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What can be done to create jobs? Six leading ideas.
The job market has shown some very welcome signs of improvement lately, but it still has a long way to go before approaching something Americans would call normal. Here’s a look at some of the proposed solutions out there.
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Mitt Romney gaffes: 9 times the button-down candidate should have buttoned up
In politics, a gaffe is often described as a "truth told by accident." Mitt Romney has had relatively few of them during his time in politics, but when the former governor of Massachusetts commits one, it can be a doozy. Here’s a list of the most memorable.
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Six ways the rich really do get richer
“Class warfare:” Lately this old term has been taking on new life as political theater, a way to rebuke Wall Street protestors, and, predictably, fodder for Fox News. According to Google, in just the last month alone, 3,870 articles have been published containing these words. Another way to express the concept of rich vs. not-so-rich is the expression, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” It’s been around for a long time: According to Wikipedia, William Henry Harrison went there in 1840: “I believe and I say it is true Democratic feeling, that all the measures of the government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.” I’m not going to take a stand on either side of the “class warfare” debate by saying that the rich do or don’t take unfair advantage of the rest of society. This is America, where we all have the potential to become rich. But I will say this unequivocally: The rich do get richer, or at least have the potential to. Let’s count the ways:
All Content
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The New Economy
Booming short sales poised to overtake foreclosures
Banks, eager to eliminate troubled mortgages through short sales rather than riskier foreclosures, are slashing prices. Average price of a short-sale home: $175,461, the lowest in at least seven years.
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The Circle Bastiat
Huge mortgage debts keep the housing market tumbling
Experts have been calling for the bottom of the housing market each year since the crash, and prices continue to tumble. Why? In an overwhelming number of cases, homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their houses are actually worth.
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Paper Economy
Fannie Mae: delinquent loans dropping
Total serious single family delinquency declined slightly in March, but remained at distressed levels.
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The New Economy
Foreclosures down, short sales up. Are banks getting smart?
Foreclosures are down to their lowest levels in nearly five years. One reason: Lenders are increasingly using short sales, instead.
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Home prices: New numbers raise hopes they're finally starting to stabilize
Declines in home prices may be slowing, according to one report, while another has found the first year-on-year increase in prices since July 2007.
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Tax VOX
Should states pay bonds to knock down buildings?
Two Ohio Members of Congress have introduced a bill to allow states to issue tax-exempt bonds to demolish buildings, which is a bad solution to a serious problem of urban development.
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10 best cities to buy short sale homes
Foreclosures are tough: Homeowners lose their houses and ruin their credit, while banks get stuck with vacant, deteriorating real estate for months before selling it at a considerable loss. Increasingly, banks are finding another way: the short sale. Instead of waiting to foreclose, a bank preemptively sells a home at a deep discount and closes out the underwater mortgage, even if the house sells for less than the value of the mortgage. The result: Homeowners shed their mortgage debt, and banks unload properties more quickly and inexpensively. Here are the Top 10 metropolitan areas with the biggest average discounts on these pre-foreclosure homes, according to online foreclosure marketplace RealtyTrac. Can you guess which city is No. 1?
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A counterweight to foreclosure crisis: community land trusts?
As home foreclosures put a drag on the US economy, 250 community land trusts across the US use one-time taxpayer subsidies to help low-income homebuyers and stabilize communities.
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Paper Economy
Delinquent home loans increase
In January, 3.08 percent of non-credit enhanced loans went seriously delinquent.
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Top 10 cities where house prices are rising
House prices continue to fall nationwide, but here and there they’ve begun to turn up as Americans return to the housing market. Which 10 metropolitan areas have seen the biggest increase in the past year? The winners, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), include a state capital, a furniture-making center, and a resort that was once America’s foreclosure capital. Can you guess who they are?
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The Circle Bastiat
Beverly Hills goes vacant
The 90210 crowd are abandoning their underwater mansions in increasing numbers. Is this a bad sign for the rest of the country?
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The Circle Bastiat
Spanish real estate bust leads to ghost towns
Thousands of apartments and houses in Spanish towns go uninhabited after real estate demand evaporates.
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Mortgage relief plan: Can it spark housing rebound?
Mortgage relief aimed at trying to boost lagging housing sector. Most of the $25 billion mortgage relief will go to homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages.
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The $26 billion mortgage settlement: who gets help and how
The main thrust of the $26 billion mortgage settlement is to help homeowners whose homes are 'under water.' Refinancing a reduced loan will lower payments and help people facing foreclosure stay in their homes.
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Will $26 billion settlement from big banks repair US housing market? (+video)
In the short term, the deal between 49 states and five big banks may actually boost foreclosures, some say. In the longer term, it should clear the inventory of homes that depresses prices and help the middle class.
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Foreclosure deal close in several key states
Foreclosure deal adopted in more than 40 US states would force mortgage lenders to reduce loans for about 1 million households. Two key states, New York and California, are close to adopting the foreclosure deal.
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Obama plan to lower mortgage payments could help, but how much?
President Obama unveiled his plan to cut mortgage payments for 'responsible homeowners' in trouble. But the housing crisis is so massive that no one program can solve it, experts say.
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What's next for Occupy Wall Street? Activists target foreclosure crisis.
As the protest movement heads into spring, Occupy Wall Street activists are interrupting foreclosure auctions and helping families re-occupy their homes.
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What can be done to create jobs? Six leading ideas.
The job market has shown some very welcome signs of improvement lately, but it still has a long way to go before approaching something Americans would call normal. Here’s a look at some of the proposed solutions out there.
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Foreclosure hardest on low-income homeowners
Foreclosure is hardest on low-income and minority homeowners, and the gap in foreclosure rates is just the latest indication of a widening rift between rich and poor.
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The Circle Bastiat
Strategic foreclosure: Why people are ditching their mortgages
More and more, indebted homeowners are deciding to walk away from their mortgages, instead of facing forced foreclosure. Who will pay the discarded debt?
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The Circle Bastiat
The week's biggest financial news
The Fed defends the housing bubble, Fannie Mae's CEO resigns, and Obama wants to convert foreclosed properties into rentals
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Why I rent, despite low mortgage rates
Mortgage rates are in the basement. Real estate is more affordable. But in this dismal job market, Americans need to stay mobile. For now, home is where I lay my head, and it’s a rental.
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2012 economic outlook: What's in store for next year?
With the housing market and auto sales showing some signs of life, pundits predict a better economy for 2012. But the ripple from a European downturn could erode the economic pace in the US.
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Home sales up. Is the housing market finally turning around?
Sales of previously owned homes rose in November, gaining for the second month in a row. And home-sales volume is up 12 percent from a year ago, says the National Association of Realtors.
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