MSNBC Reports: Homes you can Buy for $300k Or less

Barbara Corcoran picks 5 homes you can get for $300K

Each week, TODAY real estate expert Barbara Corcoran looks around the U.S. to see what homebuyers can get for their money.
This week’s search goes from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains to the "Olde Towne" neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, in search of truly unique properties you can get the keys to for $300,000 or less.

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Washington Post Reports: Public Officials Scrutinize Foreclosure Processing

Foreclosure mess prompts growing number of public officials to slow down process
By Ariana Eunjung Cha

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, November 11, 2010; 10:23 PM

One month ago, the city of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs of Cook County became a foreclosure-free zone. It wasn't the banks or judges that instituted the moratorium, because they were still moving cases forward at a rapid clip. The holdup was elsewhere: at the sheriff's office.
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CNN Money Reports: Retirement fund or Mortgage downpayment?

Should we pay down the mortgage or save for retirement?

 
By Karen CheneyNovember 10, 2010: 11:50 AM ET

(MONEY Magazine) -- For more than a year, Kim Champney, 40, and Pat Minick, 41, have been kicking in an extra $650 to their $1,048 monthly mortgage payments. "We don't like carrying a lot of debt," says Minick, who stays home with their three kids, ages 7, 8 and 10.
At this pace, the couple will pay off the loan in 2018, eight years early. But with their mortgage rate a low 4.4% after a refi, they wonder if the house is the best place to stash their cash

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Monthly New York Times Feature How Much Can Buy for $600k?

Property Values

What You Get for ... $600,000

 

Ryan Collerd for The New York Times

A former firehouse in Philadelphia, divided between workshop and living space, is on the market for $599,900.

By MIKE POWELL

Published: November 9, 2010

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Washington Post Asks: Are you Ready If Snowmageddon 2011 Hits?

When the next monster snowstorm hits the D.C. area, you can be prepared

By Tracey Longo

Special to The Washington Post
Friday, November 5, 2010; 8:01 AM

Barry Perkins has vivid recollections of fighting a losing battle last winter with his flat roof and ice-dammed gutters, which sent water leaking into three levels of his Reston townhouse. The cost of repairs? A startling $4,50

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NBC washington Blog: Old Trolley Staging Area Beneath Dupont Circle. What to do with it now?

Dupont Goes Under

Is the former trolley system D.C.'s High Line?

 

One of the latest trends in urban development is to take a dilapidated urban structure and repurpose it entirely. The success of the High Line in New York has developers and municipalities across the nation looking toward elevated tracks and other unused infrastructure elements and thinking gardens, promenades and galleries.

The District Department of Transportation just released a comprehensive outline for its D.C. Streetcar Plan, which begins with the H Street/Benning Road Line in Northeast and the Anacostia Initial Line Segment in Southeast. Expect that project to suck up a lot of the oxygen about redeveloping old infrastructure -- as it did when outgoing Mayor Adrian Fenty and presumptive Mayor-elect Vincent Gray squared off on funding for the streetcar -- for years to come.

But another group is trying to take an old project in a new direction, more in the vein of a progressive repurposing like the High Line.  The Arts Coalition for Dupont Underground wants to take some 100,000 square feet of space underneath Dupont Circle and turn it into performance and exhibition space.

The former underground trolley facility is another relic of the streetcar system that went empty in 1962. One developer tried to revive the spot in 1995, with an underground food court project called "Dupont Down Under" that itself quickly went under.

On Wednesday, the Arts Coalition and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development will host a public reception to present their ideas for the program. The reception, which will take place at the Dupont Hotel at 1500 New Hampshire Ave. NW from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., was promised at least a year ago -- and the idea itself is two years old.

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MSNBC Reports: Mortgage rates Stay low, with more Loan applications

Home loan demand rises as rates stay low 

Mortgage applications up driven by demand for purchases, refinancing

By Julie Haviv

NEW YORK — U.S. mortgage applications rose last week, driven by higher demand for both home purchase and refinance loans, as interest rates remained near record lows, an industry group reported on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes purchase and refinance loans, increased 5.8 percent for the week ended Nov. 5. It was only the third time in eight weeks that activity rose.
The four-week moving average, which smooths the volatile weekly figures, was down 1.9 percent.

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