Foreclosures Soar 200% in August
Bank of America is ramping up its foreclosure processing, sending out far more notices of default to borrowers in August than in previous months, well over 200 percent more month-to-month.
Do You Have a Financial Blueprint For Your Future?
Whether it is a lack of time, money, or interest, we seem to like to “wing it” when it comes to our financial future. Fortunately, we don’t have to have the intellect and expertise of an architect to take steps to blueprint the kind of financial future that we want. It really takes just a short amount of time to key into the “desires of our heart” (Psalm 37:4). It begins with financial goals.
Making Money in Real Estate in 2011
According to the National Association of Realtors, all-cash buyers accounted for 30% of existing home sales last month. That’s up from 25% in May 2010, and 12% two years ago. If you go back to March of this year, cash buyers made up an astounding 35% of all existing home sales.
Housing Crisis Worse than Great Depression: 7 Shocking Facts About the U.S. Housing Market
Unless you have been asleep for the past several years, you know that the United States housing market is in the midst of a downturn of historic proportions. According to Case-Shiller, one of the leading housing data analysts, housing prices dropped 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2011, revealing evidence of a clear double-dip in prices. The fall in prices even led one economist to claim that the housing crisis has been larger and faster than the one during the Great Depression.
Cost of Living Soars as Inflation Rises Most in 3 Years
Editor’s Note: Today’s rise in the CPI numbers are the inevitable outcome of the Federal Reserve’s “easy money” policies. Rising consumer prices are still in the warm-up phase. We expect inflationary pressures to continue to threaten the U.S. economy with full blown hyperinflation remaining a “real and imminent” threat over the next 12-18 months.
The Decline and Fall of the American empire
The economic powerhouse of the 20th century emerged stronger from the Depression. But faced with cultural decay, structural weaknesses and reliance on finance, can the US do it again?
Random Thoughts on the U.S. Economic “Recovery”
Stocks are getting hammered today after U.S. companies added fewer employees than forecast in May. Here are some of my random thoughts on the U.S. economic “recovery.”
FTMDaily News Update – The Slow Death of the Dollar
The Slow Death of the Dollar… In section C of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, the paper spent several pages on the topic of global currencies.
FTMDaily News Update – New IMF Report Calls for Replacing U.S. Dollar
IMF increases calls for alternative to U.S. Dollar… A new report issued by the IMF on Thursday is calling for Special Drawing Rights (SDR’s) as a potential, yet viable, replacement of the U.S. Dollar’s role as the global reserve currency.
Give Us Your Opinion: Would You Give Up Your Mortgage Deduction for a Flat Tax?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:23 — 3.3MB) | Embed
As I reported earlier on this program, President Obama’s Deficit Commission has proposed some major spending cuts to Social Security, limiting Medicare and has even suggested the elimination of the popular mortgage interest deduction for homeowners. They have also proposed lowering tax rates and simplifying the tax code.
Banks repossess US homes at record pace
Banks repossessed a record number of U.S. homes in the second quarter, but slowed new foreclosure notices to manage distressed properties on the market, real estate data company RealtyTrac said on Thursday.
The 50 most unbelievable facts about the U.S. economy
As we close on another week replete with ugly economic data and the usual bizarro counterintuitive market, here is a summary of the 50 most underreported facts about the state of the US economy, courtesy of the Coto report.
The housing bubble hangover, part 2
A booming ‘shadow inventory’ in the housing market is almost certain to bring another wave of falling prices and another round of Federal Reserve stimulus.
Fannie-Freddie Bailout Could Cost Taxpayers $1 Trillion
For American taxpayers, now on the hook for some $145 billion in housing losses connected to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, that amount could be just the tip of the iceberg.
New home sales plunge to lowest level on record
Sales collapsed a record 33 percent to an annual pace of 300,000 last month from April, less than the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and the fewest in data going back to 1963, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Demand in prior months was revised down.
Fannie-Freddie Fix at $160 Billion With $1 Trillion Worst Case
Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, already have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund.
Home repossessions hit record high in May
U.S. foreclosure activity fell in April as lenders repossessed homes at a record pace but started far fewer new actions against struggling homeowners, signaling a plateau in loan failures, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.