Archive for March 2009
Why You Shouldn’t Keep a Mortgage Just for the Tax Deduction
This is a post from CJ at WiseMoneyMatters.com. This post represents CJ’s viewpoints, which are not necessarily my viewpoints. (Although I, too, hope to pay off my mortgage early.)
The other day, I was telling my wife’s grandmother that we had sold our house. We are downsizing in order to eliminate our mortgage more quickly. It looks like we will have our mortgage completely paid off in three to five years, depending on when kids enter the scene. She gave me a speech about how our house is one of the only tax deductions we have, and how most accountants recommend you keep a mortgage payment for that reason.
I think this logic is misguided. Let me show you why. Read the rest of this entry »
50% of Foreclosures Concentrated in 1% of the Country
Nearly 12 percent of all American home owners with a mortgage–a record 5.4 million–were one month late or actually in foreclosure at the end of 2008, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Among home owners with subprime adjustable-rate mortgages, 48 percent are behind in their payments. The increase in foreclosures is being fueled by rising unemployment.
While numbers of foreclosures are declining in states that were initially hardest hit by the crisis, the situation is getting worse in Texas and New York City, places that appeared early on to be immune from the problem. Meanwhile, a report by RealtyTrac shows that most of the 1.5 million foreclosures in 2008 were focused in 35 counties. These locales represent about 1 percent of all the counties and are clustered in Michigan, Ohio, Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, South Florida and Washington, D.C. One quarter of last year’s foreclosures happened in just eight counties in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada, places where the market boomed and prices skyrocketed. About 20 percent of U.S. households live in these key counties, but they account for more than 50 percent of the foreclosures last year. In more than 650 other counties nationwide – about 20 percent – foreclosures have actually dropped since 2006.
