Buyers snatched up houses as investment properties and second homes at an especially fast clip last year. The number of homes purchased for investment purposes rose a whopping 65% in 2011, from 749,000 to 1.23 million properties—which was more than one-fourth of all homes sold last year.
As the cost of renting rises and home values keep dropping, it gets easier and easier to figure out whether it’s smarter to buy or rent. A new study indicates that in 98 out of 100 U.S. housing markets, buying is the more affordable option.
The data on housing costs isn’t pretty. Most experts recommend spending no more than one-third of your income on housing, and yet, in a new study, nearly one in four American households now spends more than half of its income on housing. Renters are experiencing especially tough times of late: At the same time that [...]
What’s getting consumers up in arms lately? Check out the list that follows. Working with various state, local, and federal consumer agencies, the Consumer Federation of America has gathered and sifted through more than 252,000 complaints logged by consumers in 2010. The result is a freshly published list of the nation’s top 10 consumer gripes.
Banks in Florida are having a hard time selling the many abandoned luxury properties now in their possession due to foreclosure. To get the homes in better shape in order to attract buyers, the properties are being rented out for half the going rate—with the stipulation that the renters must decorate, cut the grass, do [...]
Condominium owners are a very specific breed: willing, if not eager, to give up the privacy of a single-family house in exchange for handing over the burdens of maintenance, lawn-mowing and pool-cleaning to someone else.
It’s not your imagination. You really are being asked to pay like never before for everyday expenses.
A new study from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies reveals that one out of every four American renters—10.1 million households in total—spends more than half of its income on rent and utilities. Another 26.2% spends between 30% and 50% of household income on rent and utilities.
According to recently released Census data, the percentage of young adults (ages 25 to 34) who have never married has been on a steady rise over the past decade, from 34.5% in 2000 to 43.9% in 2008. In 2009, with the full onset of the recession—and apparently, with widespread feelings that getting married was a [...]
Including: Do you regularly run into people who make you wonder how they can afford an iPhone?
Cheap date ideas, tactics for negotiating with your landlord, ways your phone isn’t as dumb as you think, reasons life would be better if it was more like Monopoly, days of the year when people hand you stuff for free, and more.
