Foreclosing on Christmas For the Debora family, the holiday season usually means making tamales and opening presents under the Christmas tree. But there’s no Christmas tree this year. Probably no tamales either. The four family members are trying to save their Boyle Heights home from foreclosure. “It doesn’t feel like Christmas,” Maria Debora said in …
Monthly Archives: December 2007
The Swiss are home free
The Swiss are home free “My house is just a huge expensive brick weighing me down”, writes a homeowner on a Swiss political blog. His attitude is common in Switzerland, a country where levels of home ownership are almost half that of Australia. Switzerland is a wealthy nation of renters. In light of housing affordability …
The sales pitch was great, but the company fell apart
The sales pitch was great, but the company fell apart Invest in real estate. Make money. Improve neighborhoods. That was the pitch, and it usually started with a ride. Cary McEntee would be at the wheel, steering his black Cadillac Escalade through some of Hampton Roads’ poorest neighborhoods. His brother, Jacques, usually rode shotgun. Potential …
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This Is the Sound of a Bubble Bursting
This Is the Sound of a Bubble Bursting Two years ago, when Eric Feichthaler was elected mayor of this palm-fringed, middle-class city, he figured on spending a lot of time at ribbon-cuttings. Tens of thousands of people had moved here in recent years, turning musty flatlands into a grid of ranch homes painted in vibrant …
Option ARMs: Next Weakling
Option ARMs: Next Weakling The Bush administration is pushing its plan to help subprime borrowers whose loans are due to reset to higher interest rates next year. But left out of the mix are hundreds of thousands of borrowers with good credit who could face sharp increases in their payments. These homeowners could be the …
Cramping My Style [New York City]
Cramping My Style [New York City] Manhattan residents are making an average of $147,000 this year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That might sound like a big number, but try owning a $1 million apartment or renting a threebedroom apartment on that salary. While we hear plenty of stories about hedge-fund kings …