By now, the “shadow inventory” of foreclosed home is a familiar topic in housing industry and real estate news. But new reports on the current state of the housing comeback suggest that another shadow looms behind the improving numbers for home sales and starts: a...
There’s a move afoot in some states to get rid of Edward De Marco, currently acting head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, or FHFA – the oversight agency for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The reason, say housing experts, has to do with FHFA policies...
What’s in a name? In the years since the historic housing collapse of 2008, “real estate investors” have been alternately blamed and praised for their contributions to the emerging recovery from that mortgage meltdown. But investors can range from major investment...
One of the fundamental concepts in Finance is the notion of “Total” or “Effective” cost of ownership. This is the total cost from purchase to sale of an asset. The importance of this concept is that it shifts focus away from the acquisition cost of an asset such as...
It is possible to illustrate complex financial concepts and Jason Hartman interviews author/artist, Carl Richards, who developed a way to do this and led to his book, The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money. Carl creates simple sketches that...
In cities across the US, the housing activist movement has challenged illegal and questionable housing laws and championed the rights of everyone to have a safe and affordable dwelling. Now, some citizen housing activists are targeting income property investors, with...
After the housing collapse that forced millions of homeowners into mortgage defaults, industry experts predicted that they would become perpetual renters, too damaged to ever qualify for another home loan. But according to a recent CNBC article, a certain kind of...
Is housing getting hot again? After the historic collapse of a few years ago, the housing market has been on a slow rebound marked by increases in new home starts and demand for a limited supply of available houses. Now, a new survey reported in Business Insider...
Jason Hartman is joined on this episode by Steve Forbes, the editor in chief of Forbes Media, to propose and attempt to answer the question: Why does government get bigger and bigger when we know it doesn’t work well? Mr. Forbes states that history proves free markets...
They’re such a part pf the housing industry landscape that everyone knows their nicknames better than the official titles they stand for: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Combined owners of over half the mortgages in the US, the Federal National Mortgage Association and...
