News

2009

April

23

• Understanding your credit score. It’s the three-digit number that can have a huge impact on your life — now and in the future. I hear from a lot of people about their credit scores. In most cases, they want

• Mortgage defaults rise but homeowners stay put. More Californians are failing to make their mortgage payments than at any time in the last 20 years, but fewer of them are losing their homes, according to new figures. The drop in foreclosures follows moratoriums

• Embargos aumentan sin control. A pesar de que ciertas moratorias dieron un respiro a la ola de embargos que sacude al país desde hace meses, en el primer trimestre del año a esta crisis se le sumaron

22

• ¿A salir a comprar casa?. Esta es la fórmula que se justifica para promocionar la compra de una casa: intereses bajos + caída en los precios generales de las propiedades > compra Pero, qué pasa si no estoy en condiciones

21

• IRS, foreclosure, job scams feed on desperation. Last September, Esmeralda Carmona only had enough money to pay a fraction of her mortgage. Her husband, laid off nearly a year earlier, had not worked in nine months. Debt was mounting, and the mother

20

• Insurance premiums rise. Home, car and life insurance prices are climbing as insurers grapple with lower investment returns and profits. The cost of a typical auto insurance policy will rise 4% to $875 this year, on top of a 3% increase

19

• Why HELOCs are drying up. Home equity lines of credit, sometimes known as HELOCs, have been a popular financial tool for homeowners, precisely for times like now, when it helps to have a monetary cushion in case of job loss

18

• Low cost, low mortgage rates and sky high fees. House prices and mortgage rates are down, which sounds great for buyers and refinancers. But a series of underwriting and appraisal changes taking effect this month is throwing new obstacles in the way of borrowers

17

• Consejos para evitar la ejecución de su hipoteca. La crisis inmobiliaria ha golpeado duramente a las familias estadounidenses y, pese a que no hay aún datos específicos, todo indica que la comunidad latina es la que más se ha visto

16

• Freeze lifted, foreclosures surge in March. The number of homeowners facing foreclosure surged in March as lenders lifted temporary moratoriums and resumed legal actions against delinquent mortgage payers. Foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 341,180

• Who got bailout money?. The companies below have received money from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) as of April 13, 2009. The Treasury Department's list is mostly organized by date, beginning with Oct. 28, 2008. If a company appears more than

• Six lenders kick off Obama housing plan. The Obama administration on Wednesday named the first six companies participating in a $75-billion program designed to help millions of struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure. The administration said the firms will receive a maximum of $9.9 billion

• Lending by bailout recipients falls again. Lending by the nation's largest banks fell 6 percent in February from the previous month, continuing a downward trend that began in October with the financial crisis, according to data published yesterday by the Treasury Department.

• April 15 is over, but tax decisions await. It's over. The red-flag April 15 tax-filing deadline has passed. But the truth is that throughout the year, you have to make decisions that affect your tax situation. So it's not over. I hate to tell

14

• Flagging imposters on tax returns. When Aaron Marks tried to electronically file his tax return last spring, it was rejected by IRS computers. The reason, according to the agency, was that someone had already filed a return using his Social

13

• Red tape hits foreclosure sales. Anxious to meet the bank's demands for quick action, Andrew Garcia and his fiancee, BethAnne Hoffmann, rushed to find financing to buy a foreclosed-on house in a lovely tree-lined Baltimore neighborhood. That was in January.

• Autoridades advierten sobre riesgos de fraude hipotecario. Los recientes informes sobre el aumento de casos de fraude hipotecario ponen en evidencia la necesidad de que los propietarios de viviendas se informen y tomen precauciones para evitar ser víctimas de este tipo

12

• Pass it on, don't move out. If you intend to give your house to your kids and you want to save on estate taxes, consider establishing a qualified personal residence trust, or QPRT. You transfer title of your primary residence or

11

• Disclosing a home's energy efficiency. Picture this: You're shopping for a home, dropping by open houses on a weekend. Each house you visit has an easy-to-understand disclosure about something that's typically unknown: its annual energy-guzzling costs. The Obama administration's top

10

• Squatters calling foreclosures home. MIAMI — When the woman who calls herself Queen Omega moved into a three-bedroom house here last December, she introduced herself to the neighbors, signed contracts for electricity and water and ordered an Internet connection. What