Chitownproperty

House hunting within a budget from CNNMoney.com
CNN/Money posted this short video with tips for buying a home on a budget. We’re a little suspicious of such advice followed by a Porsche commercial, but the pointers are useful. Some highlights:

Shop for a home priced about 2.5 times your combined annual income
Be conservative when securing [...]

This American Life - Another Frightening Show About the Economy
Last week, Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life broadcast an episode in which Alex Blumberg and NPR’s Adam Davidson explain, in clear, frank language, what caused the current financial crisis, and what remedy we can expect from the current solutions being proposed by lawmakers. It’s [...]

Even in this climate, there’s no rule like an old rule — — chicagotribune.com
This week’s Tribune has a useful article about how longstanding “rules” of real estate still apply, even in today’s changing market. Buyers and sellers can count on certain maxims to get the best deal, regardless of the financial environment, including:

You [...]

Sale ain’t over till it’s closed — chicagotribune.com
You already knew that technically, your house wasn’t sold until you left the closing table and handed over the keys. But if you did sell your home in the past few years, you probably closed the deal mentally as soon as the buyer signed the contract.
Not so [...]

FTC.gov: Deter. Detect. Defend. Avoid ID Theft
Identity theft is a serious threat to your credit history, affecting your ability to secure financing for a new home. Unfortunately, this type of crime has only gotten easier online. The Federal Trade Commission has an excellent website to help consumers protect themselves against identity theft, with [...]

The good news is that mortgage rates are way down: 5.67% for a 30-year fixed loan this week. But the bad news is that the people who need to refinance the most–i.e. people who are trying to escape the leaping interest rates of their ARM–are the least likely to be able to do it, [...]

Since both the sales and mortgage markets have tightened at the same time, buyers can now take advantage of different incentives offered by developers. Some developers eager to sell new units are offering buy-downs, or paying to lower a buyer’s interest rate by a few points, to entice buyers who may be having trouble [...]

With the current environment of stagnant or even falling home prices, coupled with a tightening of the mortgage market, buying a home can seem like a risky proposition right now. But it carries the same risk it always has, provided you are realistic about what you can afford, says a marketing professor in this [...]

Once seen as a relatively easy way for buyers to stretch their resources and purchase homes they wouldn’t normally have been able to afford with a conventional mortgage, adjustable rate mortgages have quickly fallen out of favor. A general tightening of the credit market and jitters about home values have caused increasing numbers of [...]

This week CNN/Money examines common moves people take to make financial gains from their homes, like prepaying a mortgage, taking out a home equity loan, renovating, and getting an adjustable rate mortgage. Depending on your financial situation, any of these options can be good or bad. Read more and take advantage of their [...]

If you’ve considered refinancing your home, you may have heard the advice that you should base your decision on a fairly simple equation: if the upfront costs of refinancing your mortage are less than the potential savings on monthly payments, you should refinance. But this article in the Tribune says that calculation is too [...]

Do you ever get sick of those credit card and refinancing offers you get in the mail? Do you ever wonder how you get on so many mailing lists? Credit bureaus, the very companies charged with rating your ability to get a home loan, also sell your personal information to other lenders and [...]

You may have read about the problems in the “subprime” mortgage market recently. Subprime mortgages are loans given to traditionally underqualified applicants, often with extremely low interest rates that skyrocket after a brief introductory period. Many buyers who took out such loans during the recent real estate boom are now in foreclosure, as [...]

The credit market is tightening up as home prices fall and lenders worry about the ability of borrowers to repay loans. To make sure you can still qualify for a loan at a good rate, CNN/Money offers some tips for shaping up your credit profile:

Pay down any balances on credit cards, or better yet, [...]

Some homeowners are beginning to feel squeezed by payments on their variable rate home equity lines, especially after two years of interest rate increases by the Fed. Traditionally, they had two options: refinance their first mortgage and take out another credit line to pay the first, or sit tight and try to make [...]