Tag: market predictions
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VA Loans Open investing Opportunities
In various forms, the Veterans Administration loan has been around for decades, helping military personnel launch new lives4 after leaving active duty. These loans allow veterans to go back to school, start new lives and buy homes – assistance that benefits not only individual lives, but also the economy at large. Now, a little known…
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Economic Turmoil Creates Reluctant Landlords
Economic downturns and life’s unexpected twists and turns are forcing homeowners across the country to become reluctant landlords. As home prices continue to sag in some markets and a cool job market sends workers in search of employment in other areas, truing the family home into a rental may become the only option. But in…
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Is the Gold Standard Becoming Obsolete?
After months in free fall, the price of gold is expected to rise in 2014, and changing conditions both in the US and around the globe are fueling an increase in gold investments. But as the prices of this precious metal swing up and down – in recent times, mostly down – some market watchers…
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Can Digital Currencies Stay Free?
Though they’ve been largely ignored by the media, alternative digital currencies such as the Bitcoin have quietly been making inroads into financial realms once controlled by mainstream institutions and the government. With no fees, no central issuing authority and virtually complete anonymity for users, these alt-currencies represent a major challenge to the usual way of…
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Are Vampires Draining the Housing Recovery?
Hollywood may be making headlines with tales of vampires and zombies, but these bloodsuckers and walking dead are also stalking the housing recovery. According to a new RaltyTrac report, these aptly named unsellable foreclosures are keeping bank inventories high and threatening to stall a recovery that ripples throughout the entire economy. We’ve reported here previously…
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Fannie Mae Sues US and Foreign Banks
Bank fraud goes international once again in a new lawsuit filed by mortgage megalender Fannie Mae. Joining the long line of lawsuits filed against the nation’s major banks by the US Department of Justice and various state attorneys general, the new action by Fannie Mae targets both domestic and foreign lending institutions and exposes more…
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Old Houses Draw New Buyers
Some things get better with age. And while that’s a claim usually applied to fine wine and classic cars, it’s also proving true in the world of real estate, as sales of “vintage” houses – those built before 1990 – are boosting the housing recovery and related areas of the economy in markets around the…
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Younger Investors Embrace independence
A few decades or more ago, parents knew best about money management, and their offspring typically followed their lead about buying, banking and investing. But a new study of the investing habits of three generations – baby boomers, the fortysomething Generation X and recent college graduates the millennials, or Generation Y – suggests that the…
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Are Community Nuisance Ordinances Constitutional?
Laws against public crime and misbehavior have been around for years. Virtually every community has ordinances – and consequences – for public drunkenness, loitering, vagrancy and the like. But a new kind of law aimed at crushing neighborhood crime allows law enforcement to outsource policing to local property owners – and, a new court challenge…
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Can Online Auctions Boost the Recovery?
“Going, going, gone!” And the gavel slams down. If that’s your image of an auction sale, think again. Although “real world” auctions are still around, letting people bid on everything from livestock to acreage, auction sales have gone online in a big way. And because pnline real estate auctions offer a quick and no-frills way…