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WalletPop:

Filed under: Real Estate, Recession

As the real estate market continues its decline, the number of short sales — a sale of a home for less than the amount owned on it, with the lender forgiving the differences — are booming. The National Association Realtors estimates that short sales currently account for about 18% of all home sales nationwide.

While you might be able to find bargains in this segment of the distressed real estate, it can be a minefield full of long waits, confusion, and red tape. In a normal home sale, the buyer and the seller simply have to agree on a price. In a short sale, the institution servicing the loan must agree on the price, and sometimes takes months to approve the offer. If they approve it at all. The Wall Street Journal quotes (subscription required) Molly Kay Hamrick, president of Coldwell Banker Premier Realty in Las Vegas, as saying that 20% of short-sale offers in the area lead to completed sales, compared with 85% for traditional sales.And if waiting months for one lender to approve the deal sounds bad, try dealing with a homeowner who has multiple mortgages from multiple companies. That can quickly deteriorate into a word that starts with “cluster” and ends with a four-letter word that I can’t write on WalletPop.

But help may be on the way. The Journal reports that “Fannie Mae says that it plans to introduce a policy in the next few months under which real-estate brokers would be given an advance…

WalletPop:

Filed under: Budgets, Debt, Saving

Even those with the smallest amount of money management smarts know that there is a way to be responsible with their “tax rebate” check, and a way to be irresponsible. Our government is hoping you’re irresponsible with yours. The whole point of the checks is for everyone to run out and spend it on things they might not otherwise buy, giving a little boost to our economy.

But as prices are rising (and there is no shortage of people complaining about it) and people more are in debt than ever before, the most responsible thing to do with a tax rebate check for most consumers is to save it or use it to strategically pay off some debt. That’s what Terri Cullen of the Wall Street Journal is hoping her family does with their checks.

But she knows they probably won’t. Why not? Because she says they (and many other consumers) look at these checks as “found money.” It’s an unexpected windfall that’s not likely to happen again, so they feel as if they have somewhat of an obligation to run out and spend this free money.
I understand the mindset, especially if you’ve been living under a very tight budget for a while. But imagine what good could come out of being a little more thrifty and saving the money for a rainy day. For one, you could generate some interest on that money. (Maybe not a lot, but it’s still something!) And I guarantee that a…

WalletPop:

Filed under: Budgets, Debt, Saving

Even those with the smallest amount of money management smarts know that there is a way to be responsible with their “tax rebate” check, and a way to be irresponsible. Our government is hoping you’re irresponsible with yours. The whole point of the checks is for everyone to run out and spend it on things they might not otherwise buy, giving a little boost to our economy.

But as prices are rising (and there is no shortage of people complaining about it) and people more are in debt than ever before, the most responsible thing to do with a tax rebate check for most consumers is to save it or use it to strategically pay off some debt. That’s what Terri Cullen of the Wall Street Journal is hoping her family does with their checks.

But she knows they probably won’t. Why not? Because she says they (and many other consumers) look at these checks as “found money.” It’s an unexpected windfall that’s not likely to happen again, so they feel as if they have somewhat of an obligation to run out and spend this free money.
I understand the mindset, especially if you’ve been living under a very tight budget for a while. But imagine what good could come out of being a little more thrifty and saving the money for a rainy day. For one, you could generate some interest on that money. (Maybe not a lot, but it’s still something!) And I guarantee that a…