After announcing a plan that would have allowed first time homebuyers to use a special tax credit to cover the 3.5% required down payment on an FHA-insured loan, the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development apparently had second thoughts.
Late last week HUD released a newly remodeled plan that does not allow the first-time homebuyer [...]
Question: We often eat out with another couple, always dividing the check 50/50. Since Pam and I are economizing these days, we no longer order drinks in restaurants. Our friends do, though, and they don’t seem to notice that splitting the check has become an awfully good deal for them. I think they should offer [...]
The big economic news this week is the May unemployment report, which comes out Friday morning and is expected to show that the jobless rate topped 9% for the first time in a quarter century. Bad news indeed but employment is a lagging indicator of how the economy is doing and even as the unemployment [...]
If you don’t look too closely, you might think it’s 2007 all over again.
Thanks to the recent bull rally, foreign stock markets are racking up double-digit returns. The MSCI EAFE index, a benchmark of developed nations, soared 32% in the three months ending May 29. Third-world nations, meanwhile, have trounced those gains, with the MSCI [...]
loaters got sunk this week. Anyone who is in the market for a new mortgage, be it a straight-up purchase or refinance, and was letting their rate float in hopes of locking in at a lower rate instead got smacked with a near quarter point rise in the 30-year fixed rate. According to Bankrate’s latest [...]
