Where Have All the First Time Buyers Gone?

Mortgage rates are still low and the housing recovery still appears to be moving along. But in many markets around the country, fewer potential buyers are making that first step toward buying a home. Although the reasons for their absence from the housing scene is as...

The Bitcoin Baby and Ben Bernanke: Digital Currency’s Dark Side

The rise of the Bitcoin has the financial world alternately cheering and groaning. Though at first the creation of a wholly digital currency seemed little more than an online novelty, the Bitcoin has spread its wings in ways both bad and good. The birth of the first...

How Can Student Loan Debt Hurt Housing?

In recent posts we’ve taken a look at the looming crisis of out of control student debt – a burden that many new and recent college graduates must shoulder for much, if not all, of their working lives – and which has a ripple effect in other areas of the economy as...

The Big Banks: More Mortgage Malfeasance?

The big players in the post- meltdown mortgage fraud scandal continue to behave badly in spite of settlements, suite and legislation. And as legal actions set in motion years ago work their ay through the courts, the nation’s large mortgage lenders continue to fight...