From the monthly archives:

October 2012

Is The Housing Recovery Finally On A Solid Foundation?

October 31, 2012
Thumbnail image for Is The Housing Recovery Finally On A Solid Foundation?

Tweet After three years of temporary upturns and recurrent declines, housing prices appear to have finally entered a sustainable recovery. Nationally, home prices are up in year-over-year terms as measured by several indexes. The price increases are observed in most states, and they are generally larger in states that have also had above-average employment growth. [...]

Read the full article →

Top 10 Cities Where Credit Scores Improved

October 31, 2012
Thumbnail image for Top 10 Cities Where Credit Scores Improved

Tweet Across the country, Americans are starting to see their finances slowly improve as the Great Recession recedes. Credit scores are rising, on average, in numerous U.S. cities including those in some of the hardest-hit parts of the country. Bankrate lists the top 10 cities in the U.S. where residents increased their average individual credit [...]

Read the full article →

Why The ‘Trick-Or-Treat Test’ Still Matters

October 31, 2012
Thumbnail image for Why The ‘Trick-Or-Treat Test’ Still Matters

Tweet Once a year at Halloween, community designers and urbanists conjure up the “the trick-or-treat test” as a way into sparking discussion about where we live and how our communities are designed. The test, which all stems from the concept of how easily kids can find the front door to a house on Halloween and [...]

Read the full article →

City-By-City Look At U.S. House Prices

October 31, 2012
Thumbnail image for City-By-City Look At U.S. House Prices

Tweet Here’s a city-by-city breakdown of the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite, which showed a not-seasonally adjusted 0.9% increase in home prices in August. In Dallas, prices rose 0.1% in August, and are up 3.6% year over year. In Denver, prices rose 0.5% in August, and are up 5.5% year over year. Foreclosures have hit Las Vegas [...]

Read the full article →

Ten Best States To Retire 2012

October 31, 2012
Thumbnail image for Ten Best States To Retire 2012

Tweet This year’s MoneyRates.com Best States to Retire list includes some traditional warm-weather havens, such as Hawaii, California and Florida. But you may be surprised to see a few off-the-beaten-path locales in the top 10 too. While MoneyRates.com recognizes that much of what marks a good place for retirement is subjective – family and friends, [...]

Read the full article →

CoreLogic: Multiple Credit Reports Increase Mortgage Quality

October 31, 2012
Thumbnail image for CoreLogic: Multiple Credit Reports Increase Mortgage Quality

Tweet Property analytics and service provider CoreLogic said that adopting the general practice of using more than one credit score could actually increase mortgage lending. CoreLogic commissioned a study from CEB TowerGroup to see if supplemental credit data helps lenders make more informed choices, or instead cuts off financing to a greater degree. CoreLogic says it [...]

Read the full article →

Home Prices Climb Across Country

October 31, 2012
Thumbnail image for Home Prices Climb Across Country

Tweet The U.S. housing market continued to gain steam in August, with new data showing that home-price increases accelerated over the month while also spreading to more cities across the country. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home-price index rose 2.0% in August from a year earlier, an acceleration from the 1.2% annual increase in July [...]

Read the full article →

Kids Of Homeowners Are Less Likely To Drop Out

October 29, 2012
Thumbnail image for Kids Of Homeowners Are Less Likely To Drop Out

Tweet When children grow up in a home that is owner occupied, they do better in school, according to a new report. In fact, even after accounting for factors including parental education, the dropout rate for children living in owner-occupied households was 2.6 percentage points lower than for those who live in rentals. And the [...]

Read the full article →

Trick Or Treat: 7 Hauntingly Good Money Tips

October 29, 2012
Thumbnail image for Trick Or Treat: 7 Hauntingly Good Money Tips

Tweet When it comes to money, you want treats – not tricks. Seemingly good financial ideas can turn out to be anything but. Conversely, other money ideas can have value, even if at first they seemed as appealing as raw broccoli in your Halloween bag. Want to stock up on the financial treats while avoiding [...]

Read the full article →

Las Vegas Renters Take The Plunge: Buy San Gabriel Home

October 29, 2012
Thumbnail image for Las Vegas Renters Take The Plunge: Buy San Gabriel Home

Tweet After renting in Las Vegas for the past seven years, first-time homebuyers Ron and Natalee McDonald, along with their two dogs Max and Bailey, found their home: a 2,403-square-foot, four bedroom home at Lennar’s San Gabriel community in Mountain’s Edge. The couple had a wish list: value, location, square footage, yard size and features. [...]

Read the full article →