Why mortgages have eaten Americans out of house and home
Posted November 18, 2007 - 17:57 by Sarah Baughman
What lessons can future homeowners take away from today's "mortgage crisis?"
mortgage
Interview with AFFIL executive director Jim Campen
Posted November 18, 2007 - 03:58 by Philip Brewer
Early in the subprime lending collapse, Wise Bread posted a report from Americans for Fairness in Lending explaining how the subprime lending boom hurt everyone. Since it's a topic of considerable interest to Wise Bread readers, when AFFIL offered to make Jim Campen, their executive director, available to answer some questions, we jumped at the chance.
How the subprime lending boom hurt everybody
Posted September 22, 2007 - 06:17 by Philip Brewer
Among the Wise Bread community, I get the sense that there's a kind of "pox on both their houses" attitude to the problems in the subprime mortgage markets. People who worked through their own credit problems (or avoided having any) can't stir up much sympathy for people who bought houses they can't afford--and pretty much nobody has any sympathy for the mortgage brokers and hedge funds that lent them the money. A new guide from Americans for Fairness in Lending, though, shows that the damage actually hits at every level, from the individual borrowers (including borrowers with good credit), through the neighborhood, local economies, and the national economy. With their kind permission, we're presenting the guide here on Wise Bread.
What's faster for mortgage payoff: $100/month extra or 1 payment/year extra?
Posted August 10, 2007 - 13:20 by Julie Rains
Recently, a reader with a 15-year mortgage and an interest in accelerated mortgage payoff asked if it was better to pay $100 per month extra ($1,200 per year) or make an extra payment at the end of each year? The short answer: it depends on your loan balance and interest rate though generally the higher extra payment is going to result in a faster payoff. There's more, but I’ll go ahead and put my disclaimer here and say that I am responding to an inquiry not necessarily recommending that you pay extra on your mortgage. Here are the detailed calculations:
Speeding through your mortgage
Posted June 7, 2007 - 21:56 by Julie Rains
Now that many of you have crunched the numbers for accelerating your mortgage payoff, I think you are ready for a quick lesson on speeding through your mortgage. Now, I am not saying you should speed through your mortgage but there is a program available that helps you pay off your mortgage very quickly (approximately 10 years) so let’s see how it works.
Money Metaphors (You wouldn't punch a kitten, would you?)
Posted April 10, 2007 - 19:49 by Andrea Dickson
Money, to me, is often something to just be tossed at problems. I don't look at my receipts after buying groceries. I don't worry about being charged too much, since I figure that carefully studying my receipts makes me look petty. In fact, this is an attitude that gets me nowhere. I don't protect my money. Maybe I would if I thought of it like a kitten.
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