Personal Finance

HOA tries to collect fees after man loses home

Foreclosures

The Arizona Republic ran a hot-button story today with a zinger of a headline: HOA still seeking fees despite man losing Chandler home. A former Chandler resident is learning the hard way that you can’t walk away from homeowners’ association assessments even if you’ve lost your home. In my opinion the paper does a lousy [...]

23 April 2010 Read the full article →

Like disability insurance for your home

Mortgages

Just heard about this today. Flagstar, in a sign of the times, has paired up with MI company Genworth to offer a low-down payment mortgage benefit designed to cover a home buyer’s mortgage payments if he or she becomes involuntarily unemployed. “Job Loss Protection” covers a borrower’s mortgage payment (principal, interest, taxes and insurance) of [...]

9 April 2010 Read the full article →

$8,000 Tax Credit for Buying $10,000 Home?

First Time Buyers

Question: Could a qualified person get a $8,000 tax credit to buy a $10,000 house? Answer: In short, no. You can’t get $8,000 for buying a $10,000 house. Why? There’s no minimum purchase, but the tax credit is written as “10% of the purchase price, up to $8,000″. Thus, if you spent $10,000 on a [...]

27 December 2009 Read the full article →

Of Malls and Cramdowns, A (sort-of) Op-Ed

Op Ed

This is from Rob Chrisman’s daily mortgage-related email which I subscribe to… According to the Wall Street Journal [General Growth Properties, which owns 200 malls nationwide] filed a [Chapter 11] plan in bankruptcy court [recently] to restructure $9.7 billion in mortgage loans… “The pact allows mortgage holders to report the loans as performing on their [...]

3 December 2009 Read the full article →

Walking Away from a Mortgage

Foreclosures

I’ve had several phone calls in the past 10 days or so that are truly worrying. These have been from homeowners who aren’t having trouble paying their mortgage but say they are thinking about walking away from the house anyhow. Financial writer John Maudlin noted this trend in his recent email: Another problem is that [...]

4 June 2009 Read the full article →

Produce the Note, More Information

In The News

Back in late February I wrote a piece about using a tactic called “Produce the Note” to prevent your mortgage lender from foreclosing on your home. A very nice gentleman called me yesterday and left me a voicemail, reminding me that I hadn’t posted the follow up piece I promised. Thanks for reading, sir! I’m [...]

1 May 2009 Read the full article →

Improve your credit score the easy way: Rent Better Credit

In The News

I heard something about this last year, but either it wasn’t explained to me very well or I just flat out didn’t believe it. Today there was an article on AZCentral.com discussing it in detail, and there is actually some argument about whether or not it’s legal. Here’s the quick version. Your credit score isn’t [...]

5 June 2007 Read the full article →