An interesting article on US News was titled “forget the mortgage, I’m paying my credit card bill…“  A recent study by transunion credit company showed that out of Americans who are current on their credit card bills, and increased 6.6% of them fell behind on their mortgage.  And the number of consumers behind on their [...]

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As I see it, you have two choices when looking for a new home or Mission Viejo apartments . You can either (A) live closer to work and enjoy a short commute while paying a higher rent/mortgage or (B) live further away from work and enjoy lower-cost housing while struggling with a time-consuming and frustrating [...]

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A new academic paper by Arizona Law Professor Brent T White has people talking, called “Underwater and Not walking away: Shame, Fear, and Social Management of the Housing Crisis.”  He suggests that people walk away from their mortgages because it will take years to recoup their losses.
More interestingly, he suggests that if the 15 milllion [...]

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Right now I’m not able to refinance and neither are some friends of mine.  For different reasons, but we’re both pretty much stuck with what we have.
I considered refinancing our mortgage because we’re in an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM).  A fantastic rate ARM, 4.25% for another 3 years, total 7/1 ARM.  It even caps out [...]

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A new study published finds that homeowners with good credit, no late payments are choosing to walk away from their homes and trash their credit, lose their homes. Why?  Why would responsible people make such a decision?
It’s a calculated gamble.
A gamble that it makes more financial sense to leave behind a financial mess and start [...]

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This is a fun calculation for both homeowners and renters.  What does your home cost you daily?  We can use 30 days a month, and we should try to add in everything.  For homeowners this includes the mortgage, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities.  For renters the same.  Obviously it’ll cost less if you rent than [...]

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A recent paper from Economists at the University of Chicago states that 26% of mortgage defaulters do so willingly. What that means?  That means people are CHOOSING to default and walk away from their homes because they owe more than the home is worth.  They are “underwater” on their mortgage.
The authors state this is not [...]

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So I had a discussion with a friend over what to do.  Should he sell his condo or rent it out?  He is in the military so his salary is set and his job secure.  He is being relocated, unfortunately his condo has lost value.  But here are the numbers.
Income – $6534/month = $78411/year
BAS (Base [...]

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So right now mortgage rates are super low.  It’s a great time for many people to refinance.  You can likely get a 30 year fixed rate mortgage for close to 5%.  It is a currently at an all time low for most people.  So why not refinance?
First, I know people who put nothing down, thus [...]

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One week ago I talked about renting my house.  I said that basically my DH and I have been “renting” our home because our home has not appreciated but rather stagnated in price.  Granted we’re still fortunate that we are not upside down but what has it cost us?
Our mortgage is $2262/month, Property Taxes $400/month, [...]

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