Wall Street firms have found a new way to profit from consumers with blemished credit who can’t qualify for a mortgage: let them rent a home first with the option to buy it later.Rent-to-own programs, once run mainly by small operators, were popular with cash-strapped consumers during the 1990s. They faded a decade later when …
Category Archives: Real Estate
Residential development showing North Hyde Park’s good side [Central Florida]
The legend of Kennedy Boulevard being the great dividing line between Cool Tampa and the rest of the city may be fading. The latest evidence? A residential boom appears imminent in North Hyde Park, a neighborhood of former warehouses and light industry just north of Kennedy that has been targeted for several new apartment, town …
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Seattle’s Luxury Homes Get a Tech Boom Boost
The technology boom is pushing its way north up the Pacific Coast, boosting real-estate prices, sparking neighborhood squabbles and creating new demand for luxury homes asking $1.5 million or more.Real-estate agents say Seattle, the longtime home of software giant Microsoft and online-retailing behemoth Amazon, is attracting more technology firms because it offers a combination of …
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Quirky Homes Show Their True Colors
Hosam Haggag and Fatima Rahman bought a fixer-upper in a historic neighborhood in Santa Clara, Calif., for $415,000 in 2011. Because of its shabby condition, the house was a rare bargain in Silicon Valley, where Mr. Haggag is a product manager for a large technology company. As part of a 2½-year renovation that cost almost …
How Renters Can Build Long-Term Wealth, Too
Home might be where your heart is, but it isn’t necessarily where your wealth grows.With American homeownership in a steady decline, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, many households are not living in the passive asset that is a house. Homeownership is a long-term play, and for most families, true wealth only materializes when the …
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