Bank of America Introduces Community Affordable Loan Solution … – Bank of America Newsroom
Bank of America Introduces Community Affordable Loan Solution … Bank of America Newsroom
homeownership
Closing Costs: What Are They, And How Much Will You Pay?
If youâve saved for a down payment on a new place, congratulations on a major achievement. Thatâs probably quite a chunk of change, but, sorry to say, you are likely going to have to dig somewhat deeper to afford closing costs on your home. How deep, you ask? Closing costs average 3% to 6% of […]
The post Closing Costs: What Are They, And How Much Will You Pay? appeared first on SoFi.
How to Back Out of Your Mortgage the Right Way
With terms as long as 30 years, mortgages require a significant financial commitment and ensured sustainable income. This is usually a sign of stability, foresight, and an investment in the future – but sometimes disaster can strike. Whether it’s a family emergency or an unexpected financial hiccup, prospective homebuyers may find themselves in the unfortunate… View Article
The post How to Back Out of Your Mortgage the Right Way first appeared on Total Mortgage.
North Carolina First-Time Home Buyer: 2023 Programs & Grants
Discover loan programs, grants, and home buying help for North Carolina first-time home buyers. Buying a home in NC may be easier than you think.
Bank of America Launches a Zero Down Mortgage
This week, Bank of America unveiled a zero down mortgage option as part of their Community Homeownership Commitment. In short, they want to help more âmodest-incomeâ and first-time home buyers achieve the American Dream of homeownership. Specifically, they said theyâre targeting âcertain Black/African American and/or Hispanic-Latino neighborhoodsâ throughout the country. To accomplish this goal, theyâve… Read More »Bank of America Launches a Zero Down Mortgage
The post Bank of America Launches a Zero Down Mortgage appeared first on The Truth About Mortgage.
Half of Americans Donât Even Know What a Mortgage Is?
A new shock poll (I just wanted to utter that phrase) found that half of Americans donât even know what the word âmortgageâ means. The findings are based on a survey of 2,000 Americans on behalf of mortgage lender PrimeLending, conducted by OnePoll. Perhaps more amazingly, 73% of those polled were homeowners, yet many still… Read More »Half of Americans Donât Even Know What a Mortgage Is?
The post Half of Americans Donât Even Know What a Mortgage Is? appeared first on The Truth About Mortgage.
HUD is developing an appraisal review process to investigate racial bias
HUD said lenders will have clear guidance on how to navigate the new appraisal review process for borrowers seeking FHA financing.Â
What’s the best long-term investment?
What’s the best long-term investment? Because you’re a money nerd (and a GRS reader), I hope your answer to this question was, “Stocks!” If the future is anything like the past, that’s the correct answer. History has shown that stocks are the best long-term investment — and by a wide margin.
Unfortunately, most Americans believe otherwise.
As a part of its annual Economy and Personal Finance survey (conducted during the first two weeks of April), Gallup News asked 1017 American adults, “Which of the following do you think is the best long-term investment: bonds, real estate, savings accounts or CDs, stocks or mutual funds, or gold?”
Here’s how people answered:
- 35% of respondents said that real estate is the best-long term investment
- 21% said that stocks or mutual funds are the best long-term investment
- 17% said that savings accounts or certificates of deposit are the best long-term investment
- 16% said gold is the best long-term investment
- 8% said bonds are the best long-term investment
While acknowledging that past results are no guarantee of future performance — let’s take a look at why I think Americans haven’t got a clue when it comes to figuring out the best long-term investment strategy.
The Rate of Return on Everything
The August 2019 issue of The Quarterly Journal of Economics included a paper entitled “The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870-2015”. Over an astounding 74 pages of discussion, the authors attempt to analyze the long-term (145-year) rate of return on a variety of assets around the world.
The paper examines four popular investment vehicles:
- Bills, by which the authors mean Treasury bills, are short-term government bonds. At present, these are a good proxy for the rates you can earn with a high-yield savings account. (I don’t think this is always the case, though.)
- Bonds, which in this case refers to ten-year government bonds (such as a 10-year Treasury note).
- Equity, which is another way to describe common stock. Here, the authors are measuring overall stock market performance.
- Housing, including rental properties.
We’ll look at each of these in greater detail in a moment (and we’ll look at gold too), but for now let’s look at this paper’s overall findings. While the authors looked at data for many countries, I’m only going to share results for the U.S. The following table shows the rates of return for these different asset classes over three different time periods. (Remember that, for our purposes, Bills are a stand-in for savings accounts.)
From this table, it’s clear that equities (i.e., stocks) have been the highest return investments over long periods of time. Nothing else comes close. (Outside the U.S., this isn’t always true.)
Now, while stocks provide the best long-term returns, they also come with the greatest volatility. Here’s a a chart (Figure VII) from the paper that shows just how crazy the ride with stocks can be. (Also note how closely equities and real estate tracked each other until the Great Depression.)
It’s this volatility that scares so many people away from the stock market. They’re afraid that a sharp decline can come at any time. And that’s true. But what’s also true is that a prolonged bull market can occur at anytime, as we experienced from March 2009 to February 2020! If you’re a long-term investor, you don’t give a fig about short-term market movement.
Let’s dive deeper into the long-term investment returns provided by the asset classes in the Gallup poll: real estate, stocks, savings accounts, gold, and bonds.
OJ Rodriguez 2010’s- “Keeping up with the times.”
For many decades, whether it was from a television commercial, a newspaper advertisement, a yard sign, or from our signature gold blazers, CENTURY 21 Real…
The post OJ Rodriguez 2010âs- âKeeping up with the times.â first appeared on Century 21®.
Keeping a home improvement projects to-do list
My Christmas curse continues! You see, for a long time now â almost thirty years â Christmas has become synonymous with home problems for me.
This all started in the first home that Kris and I owned back when we were newly married. We woke one Christmas morning to find that the water heater had overflowed, flooding the laundry room and much of the converted garage. Unfazed, we cleaned up the mess and spent our holiday without hot water. It was fun!
Since then, I’ve experienced a long line of home problems on Christmas day: frozen pipes, broken gutters, fallen fences, and more. And this year? Well, this year’s issue was minor…but may lead to a major repair.
The house that Kim and I bought last August is in good shape. We made sure of that during the inspection period. Still, no home is perfect â and a house built fifty years ago has a few warts.
“Did you know something’s wrong with the ceiling in the hall bathroom?” Kim asked on Christmas morning after she finished her shower. “The paint on the ceiling seems to be peeling.”
“What?” I said. I went to take a look. Kim was right. The paint on the ceiling seemed to be peeling.
“I’ll bet that’s from moisture,” I said. I found a footstool and climbed up to take a closer look. I turned on the ventilation fan. “Wow,” I said. “The fan doesn’t seem to be pulling any air. That’s the root issue.”
I toyed with the peeling paint, which was a mistake. The brittle stuff crumbled and fell to the floor in large chunks. “That’s so strange,” I said. I picked up a few pieces of debris. “Is this only paint? It seems so thick.”
“It looks like it’s just paint,” Kim said. “But many layers of paint. Who knows? It could be something else underneath.”
So, now we have the first urgent home project in our new place. It’s not a huge deal, obviously, but it’s something we want to repair sooner rather than later. It’s just a matter of finding time. (This seems like something we should be able to fix ourselves rather than hiring out.)
This issue has actually been a blessing in disguise. Everywhere I live, I keep a master list of repairs and projects. But I hadn’t yet drafted that list for our home here in Corvallis. This morning, I remedied that.