I’m a little late to this news: Freddie Mac, one of the two mortgage giants seized by the federal government, on Friday reported its first profit in two years, and didn’t seek more aid from the U.S. Treasury. That’s exactly opposite from big sister and fellow government controlled company…
Jim writes in: You write all the time about just helping people and that it will somehow help you. I don’t see it. I understand how it’s beneficial to help someone who can obviously help you, but what benefit is there for helping others beyond the idea that it’s…
A reader asked me if I could break down my ideas into a handful of principles. After some careful thought, I came up with a list of fourteen basic “rules” that summarize my money and life philosophy. I’ll be presenting these as a weekly series. Whenever I’m in a…
Randy Johnson, president of Independence Mortgage Co. in Newport Beach, author of “How to Save Thousands of Dollars on Your Home Mortgage” and a mortgage broker since 1983, answers questions… Chi Nam in Mission Viejo asks: Q. I own a home and have a 15-year mortgage. My principal balance…
Home equity is the best retirement plan anyone can think of. It is a long-term tool, which can be effectively used to generate regular income. A report generated by MetLife’s Mature Market Institute proposes that a home equity is very beneficial for those who are on the verge of…
The big question of the week was: “Are house prices near the bottom?” My feeling has been that house prices are probably close to the bottom in the lower priced bubble areas with heavy foreclosure activity (Lawler’s ” de-stickification “). Inventories are very low in many of these areas, and…
This is the tenth of twelve parts of a “book club” reading and discussion of Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover , where this book on debt reduction is teased apart and looked at in detail. This entry covers the eleventh chapter, finishing on page 202. The next entry,…
In April and May, National Public Radio featured a series on inexpensive gourmet dishes entitled “How Low Can You Go?” Although many of the dishes looked quite tasty, most of the dishes weren’t actually all that inexpensive, often narrowly getting below $10 to feed a family of four, and…
What if I wrote that U.S. payroll employment increased by 383 thousand jobs in May 2009 following an increase of 259 thousand jobs in April 2009? Some readers would suspect CR had been captured by aliens or had visited crazytown. But, in fact, those numbers are exactly what the BLS…
From David Streitfeld at the NY Times: Recovery Signs in Housing Market Stir Some Hope After a plunge lasting three years, houses have finally become cheap enough to lure buyers. That, in turn, is stabilizing prices, generating hope that the real estate market is beginning to recover. From Peter Hong…