Real estate has long held a special place in American life. Everyone has heard the phrase “The American Dream”, which refers to the spirit or ethos of the United States. The American Dream is an expression that refers to the inherent promise in the second line of the Declaration of Independence: “Life, Liberty and the [...]
Mutual funds have become very popular over the last several years as investing has grown among the broader public. Today there are tens of thousands of mutual funds in the United States, with a combined total of trillions of dollars of assets under management. A mutual fund is an investment vehicle, consisting of funds collected [...]
The commodities market is the most volatile market in the world. Commodities are raw and primary goods, such as oil, coal, meat, dairy products, copper, gold, and wheat. There is a large variety of commodity products traded on the various exchanges that make up the global commodities market. This market is made up of traders [...]
Mortgage fraud became a large problem in the real estate market as the housing bubble neared bursting. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched multiple operations that have resulted in over eight hundred arrests and more than four hundred convictions in 2009 alone. The FBI estimated more than $1.5 billion was lost through mortgage fraud. [...]
Bankruptcy is known as the last resort step for an excellent reason: it deals a semi-permanent blow to the debtor’s credit rating and to their financial life. The effects of having a bankruptcy listed on a credit report are many, but the effect that is felt the most is the inability to access credit for [...]
Starting and running a business is a courageous task. Half of all start-ups fail within the first five years. Becoming an entrepreneur requires vision, conviction and the willingness to put oneself on the line to achieve their dreams. Not surprisingly, entrepreneurs make up a small portion of the American business landscape. For all new and [...]
Owning land has been the dream of Americans since the founding of the first English colonies in the 1600s. Today, the ideal of land ownership has been changed to the ideal of real estate ownership, especially residential real estate. This shift in public and private thinking largely occurred during the Great Depression, when the housing [...]
All lenders, from the large to the local, rely on credit as a means of advancing funds. Credit allows lenders to make loans beyond their actual cash reserves. Unfortunately, during a credit crisis such as the current recession, lenders have their largest asset suddenly become a liability. According to the Federal Reserve, the amount of [...]
The credit crisis and ongoing recession have resulted in lenders tightening their standards and being much more cautious about to whom they lend. Consequently, many borrowers with bad credit or unstable financial situations have found it difficult or impossible to secure funding. Self-employed borrowers, who found it difficult to secure home loans before the financial [...]
Mortgages are a large industry in the United States. According to the Federal Reserve, there is over $14 trillion of mortgage debt outstanding as of June 2010. This is a staggering amount of debt, which represents profits for lenders on both the principal and the interest on each one of those loans. Making these loans [...]
Fixed-rate mortgages are the most common and popular types of mortgages, but there are other mortgage products that have been growing in use over the past several years. One of the most popular types of alternative mortgages are adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs. ARMs are very different from fixed-rate mortgages; the most obvious difference is that [...]