Jonathan over at My Money Blog commented on this Wall Street Journal article about Detroit neighborhoods getting hit with foreclosures. He snickered a little at the article, and after reading it myself I was doing pretty much the same thing. Homeowners are caving in under rising payments on their adjustable, subprime mortgages, and cannot sell … Read more
A good friend closed on land and a building loan today. He was telling me about the loan process and some of the terms of his building loan/mortgage. It had terms that I hadn’t run across before, but they were interesting terms. The loan is fixed rate, 30 years, but the payment increases after 10 … Read more
This is probably unusual advice. Maybe even bad advice. Seems silly to get out of home ownership into renting. The American Dream is just the opposite: getting out of renting into home ownership. Renting has a lot of disadvantages compared to home ownership, and under most circumstances it’s better in the long run to try to buy a home. Rent … Read more
Jim over at Blueprint For Financial Prosperity gave a quickie list of five personal finance teaching gifts for kids. Number 3 on the list was Monopoly. I agree 100% that this is a great game for teaching kids about the ins and outs of money — with one caveat: Play the game by the rules. … Read more
My wife went to a church retreat this weekend in the Virginia Beach area. The church still had some time left on the rental (they had paid through today at 10 AM) so there was some time for others (like myself) to come down to enjoy the house for a bit. The house was right … Read more
Mortgages that outlive you. The truest kind of mortgage, since a root of the word is mort — French for death. They’re all but guaranteed to build very little equity during the first years and put people at almost as great a risk as those with interest-only loans of going upside-down on their mortgage should … Read more
Wow. The response to my posts on Douglas Andrew’s Missed Fortune 101 continues to be lively. Just got a comment about it through e-mail today, in fact. This discussion has taken on a life of its own in some ways. On the main post people’s opinions of my comments have been everything from being a … Read more
The May 2006 issue of Money Magazine has an article on how to deal effectively with contractors and what to look for in hiring one for any remodeling work. Several good checklists and tips, including what to get in writing (things like exactly what’s to be done, estimated timeline, mediation and arbitration clauses, etc.), whether … Read more