Articles About Residential

The Congressional Budget Office has determined that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) will cost the government $109 billion – just 16 percent of the $700 billion set aside to rescue the nation from the great recession.  Insurance giant AIG and the auto industry are TARP’s largest beneficiaries. The federal government bought $40 billion in […]

Two massive earthquakes in a single month – an 8.8 trembler in Chile and a 7.0 quake in Haiti – have raised the question of whether engineers can design buildings that don’t crumble when the earth’s tectonic plates crash against one another. Although the simple answer is that the technology exists to make buildings almost […]

Despite the Snowmageddon that crippled Washington, D.C. and much of the East Coast during February, the economy continued to grow at a modest rate.  This is the opinion of the Federal Reserve’s newly issued Beige Book report – officially known as the “Summary of Commentary on Current Economics Conditions by Federal Reserve District” — which […]

The rate of mortgage delinquencies – borrowers who are one payment late – fell slightly between the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2009 from 9.64 percent to 9.47 percent.  According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), a fourth quarter decline is unusual — even when there is no recession — because winter and the holidays typically […]

Economic indicators show that the recession is over.  This is the opinion of Rick Mattoon, a senior economist and advisor in the economic research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.  Rick’s primary research focuses on issues facing the Midwest regional economy. […]

After the success of the “Cash for Clunkers” and “Cash for Caulkers” programs, the Obama administration has rolled out “Cash for Appliances”, with the goal of replacing aging washers and refrigerators with new ones that consume less energy.  Funded by the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus bill, “Cash for Appliances” is a […]

Arizona, Georgia and Texas are the growth centers in terms of new residents in the last few years, according to an Associated Press analysis of Internal Revenue Service migration data. The IRS compared the states where taxpayers filed their returns from 2007 to 2008 to arrive at their conclusions. Texas led the nation, with 62,827 […]

New York-based photographer Gregory Holm returned to his hometown of Detroit to draw attention to the nation’s housing crisis by coating an abandoned house with a sheet of ice.  Called the Detroit Ice House, the project was designed to inspire residents of a city with thousands of vacant homes and a foreclosure rate that is […]

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) wants to scrap Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in favor of an entirely new mortgage-financing system. According to Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and who previously supported the programs, “The committee will be recommending abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current forms and coming up with […]

Foreclosure is mutually destructive for all parties and something should be done about it.  That’s the opinion of Jafer Hasnain, Managing Principal of Lifeline Assets, the first large-scale institutional investment fund targeted toward acquiring single-family homes that are in financial distress.  The firm’s business model aligns the interests of distressed homeowners, banks, investors and American […]