Ken Harney -- New life for tax credit? 09/30/09 Will Congress extend the wildly popular $8,000 homebuyer tax credit beyond its Dec. 1 expiration date? That's a question generating huge pressure on Capitol Hill, from
would-be...
Ken Harney -- Higher credit, higher chance of walking away 09/30/09 Who is more likely to walk away from a house and a mortgage -- a person
with super-prime credit scores or someone with lower scores? Hint: It's probably not who you think. New ...
Ken Harney -- Leasebacks in spotlight 09/01/09 Here are two questions getting a lot of attention on Capitol Hill and from the Obama administration: When homeowners lose their houses to foreclosure, should they be able to sta...
Ken Harney -- More protections at closing 07/31/09 If you're applying for a loan to purchase a primary or secondary home, or planning to refinance, you should be aware of a little-publicized new set of federal consumer-protectio...
Ken Harney -- Broadening the housing tax credit 07/01/09 Since first-time buyers are getting thousands of dollars in tax credits from the federal government to stimulate the economy, why shouldn't all homebuyers get equal treatment? A...
Blaming broker appraisals 05/28/09 From the May issue: Are lowballed valuation estimates on short sales and bank-owned
foreclosures artificially depressing property values in neighborhoods
across the country?
...
Ken Harney - Blaming broker appraisals 04/30/09 Are lowballed valuation estimates on short sales and bank-owned foreclosures artificially depressing property values in neighborhoods across the country?
Growing numbers of ...
Ken Harney - Taking aim at the top tax bracket 04/28/09 From the April issue: Call it the third rail of the federal tax
system: the politically untouchable cluster of special benefits and
subsidies set aside exclusively for homeown...
Ken Harney - Taking aim at the top tax bracket 03/31/09 Call it the third rail of the federal tax system: the politically untouchable cluster of special benefits and subsidies set aside exclusively for homeowners, including deduction...
Ken Harney - Study looks at carrots to motivate buyers 01/30/09 If you'd love to purchase a new house but you're sitting on the fence, what exactly would it take to get you to buy?
Mortgage rates lower than today's 5 percent range? Small...
Ken Harney - Drilling past the negative news 12/30/08 The latest federal statistics on housing prices in hundreds of local markets reveal patterns that haven't been making the nightly news: While on a national basis homeowners have...
Ken Harney - Demanding the freshest comps 12/02/08 How fresh are your "comps" — the comparable sales of properties used as benchmarks in home real estate appraisals? Buyers and sellers rarely had to be concerned about such...
Ken Harney - Danger looming for FHA 11/03/08 In the current credit squeeze, if you have less than a 20 percent down payment, there's pretty much only one major source of mortgage financing available: FHA, the Depression-er...
Breaking the bull 10/04/08 When the nation's finance sector ended as the world knew it last month, the city's real estate community was left slack-jawed, wondering what it would mean for the commercial an...
Ken Harney - Revisiting the fuel that started the fire 10/03/08 Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers may have dominated the financial headlines last month, but a little-noticed $28 million settlement between the Federal...
Ken Harney - Tossing out a lifeline 10/03/08 Whether you see it as an exorbitant taxpayer bailout of Wall Street and the banks — or you're cheering from the sidelines — you can agree: The new federal moves to r...
Ken Harney - New way to tap home equity 10/03/08 Improbable as it sounds at a time when American homeowners have lost billions in equity holdings, a new industry is taking shape to help them tap portions of their equity wealth...
Ken Harney - Closing a second home loophole 08/29/08 Deep in the nearly 700 pages of the new housing bill just signed into law is a complicated tax code change that could affect substantial numbers of people who purchase second ho...
Ken Harney - Home values still getting inflated 08/29/08 Have the real estate valuation shenanigans and inflated home appraisals that characterized the boom years disappeared from the marketplace?
Are mortgage loan officers and rea...
Ken Harney - Keeping an eye on credit reports 07/29/08 If you're thinking about buying a home or refinancing — even if you've got excellent credit — you may want to avail yourself of a forthcoming free service that could...
