July 09, 2007

Weekend Roundup

I had a bit of a light week last week and it gave me the opportunity to spend some time this weekend perusing the national news. I ran across a group of articles that I found tremendously informative and/or interesting and I thought I would share them with you. I hope you find them enjoyable!

Investing in real estate via your IRA

Real estate has always been permitted in IRAs, but few people know about this option. Financial institutions -- mutual funds, stock brokerages, banks -- are typically where IRAs are held. But investments in other things, most notably real estate, are fully permissible under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. It prohibits retirement plans from investing in just two types of investments -- life insurance contracts and collectibles. Everything else is fair game.

Subprime Lenders on Notice

It won't mean the end of high-risk mortgages for subprime home buyers, but new guidance from federal financial regulators will almost certainly cut sharply the availability of some such loans.

When Foreclosure Threatens, Beware of the Bird Dogs

Mortgage foreclosures are up -- and so are the scams. Let's say you have received a letter from your mortgage lender advising that if you do not bring your payments current, the lender will have no alternative but to begin foreclosure. Within days of receiving this notice, you may get a telephone call: "Hi, my name is I.B. Scammer, and I understand that you are delinquent on your mortgage payments. You don't want to lose your beautiful home, and my company can assist you. When can I come over to explain how we operate and how we can help you?"

For Some Associations, An Easy Source of Cash

Community associations looking to raise cash can do it by shopping. A new Web site called CondoPerks rebates to registered associations a percentage of whatever their residents buy. And it's free.

New Loan Eliminates 'Junk Fees', but May Not Save You Money

There is much to admire in Bank of America's new "no-fee mortgage plus" program for home buyers, but there also are some shortcomings.

Moving These Old Houses

What to do when you just don't want to leave behind your 57 ft high Ukranian House.

The New Homeowners

Congress, presidential candidates, and lots of Americans may be giving a tepid welcome to the immigrants settling into America's neighborhoods -- some illegally, most legally. But the housing industry should be sending a welcome wagon. And every baby boomer hoping to sell his home in the next decade should be embracing these newcomers, for they will constitute an increasing segment of the home-buying, apartment-renting market. According to University of Southern California demographer Dowell Myers, immigrants and baby boomers must "forge a new social contract."

What You Get For...$7 Million

Jul 9, 2007 9:34:49 AM | Weekend Roundup

The comments to this entry are closed.

NEXT POST
The Week Ahead in the Capital Markets We have a world class secondary market department and they are kind enough to send out weely updates to us sales monkeys. I like posting it as it is both a great source of technical and anecdotal information. Please let me know your thoughts! The Week Ahead in the Capital Markets - July 2, 2007 To death and taxes, you can add this to your list of inevitabilities: the sub-prime mortgage crisis is not an isolated event. – Bill Gross One week he scares us with thoughts of global growth and super-high interest rates; the next he says sub-prime foreclosures are going to create financial contagion and take interest rates lower. Such are the ways of Bill Gross, PIMCO’s bond king, who predicts a Fed rate cut by the end of the year. Gross’ theory is that upcoming re-sets of sub-prime loans will add to escalating delinquencies and escalating defaults, and will cause financial chaos and lower rates. He is as sure of his theory as he “is sure the sun sets in the west.” Sub-prime defaults will hurt the weaker tranches of CDOs, credit spreads will gap wider, and investors will stop buying weaker credits in mortgage, corporate, and...
PREVIOUS POST
Carnival of Real Estate Thank you very much to Marty Van Diest and the Carnival of Real Estate. I am fortunate enough to have had another blog entry selected to appear on the weekly carnival. As I mentioned before, the Carnival of Real Estate is just like a regular carnival, only lacking the rickety old rides and cotton candy. And it's also missing the strongman, bearded lady, and any exceptionally short or tall people. Actually, come to think of it I guess it's nothing like a traditional carnival. Here is brief summary from their web site as to what a carnival of blogs really is: It’s a weekly summary of the best blogging posts on a given subject that appeared in someone’s blog during the previous week. A different blog hosts the carnival each week. Suffice it to say that I am incredibly honored to be selected. I have always enjoyed writing and this is proving to be a great outlet and added supplement to my business. Thanks to the good folks at The Carnival of Real Estate!!

Tim Abbott

The Typepad Team

Search

Recent Comments