Free Republic

Inflation is crippling rural America and driving some people to consider moving closer to cities in an effort to ease the financial stress, according to the latest analysis from one expert. Iowa State University professor Dave Peters has been studying the effect of inflation on people in rural communities as part of the school's Small Town Project. He found that this year alone, expenses for rural Americans had increased by 9.2%, but their earnings only increased by 2.6%. And Peters has pinpointed where it's hurting most. "Mainly, fuel prices, particularly among the farmer and agricultural community," he said. "They really...

Vice President Kamala Harris will announce an action plan to stop racial discrimination in the appraisal of home values, according to senior Biden administration officials. The plan contains 21 steps to improve oversight and accountability, including a legislative proposal to modernize the governance structure of the appraisal industry. Appraisers help to determine the value of a home so that buyers can receive a mortgage. Multiple reports, including a September analysis by mortgage buyer Freddie Mac, show that appraisers are more likely to undervalue homes in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. This form of discrimination widens the racial wealth gap and makes...

Ever since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in late 2017, Democrats and a few Republicans have decried how the law’s $10,000 cap of the state and local tax deduction harms schools, local communities, home values, first responders, and middle-class families. Fast forward almost two years later and these false claims are not going away. House Democrats recently announced a hearing scheduled for Tuesday where many of the common myths are likely to be repeated. Here are a few of the most common misconceptions. Myth #1: The Cap Hurts Middle-Class Taxpayers Before the 2017 tax cut capped the state...

FERGUSON, Mo. — Peering outside the office window of his tire shop, John Zisser grumbles about the pile of burnt rubble that lies on the opposite corner of a busy intersection. “If you come here to my shop and you see that,” he says, as gestures out the window, “is that going to give you a warm, fuzzy feeling like you want to come back here to do business?” “Short answer: no, no it’s not,” he says. Zisser, 55, has owned and operated Zisser’s Tires in this city since 1987. He says the still-visible damage from the November protests that...

SHREVEPORT, La. -- "Goin' Home." It keeps going around and around in my head as we drive around my old home town -- the slow, sweet musical theme Dvorak used for the largo in his New World symphony. By writing lyrics for it, a gifted pupil of his turned it into a kind of modern Negro spiritual, putting into words the plaintive, elegiac spirit of the music -- and the longing felt by anyone homesick for an irretrievable past: Goin' home, goin' home, I'm a-goin' home; Quiet-like, some still day, I'm jes' goin' home. It's not far, jes' close...

“Government is theft.” The old libertarian battle cry came to mind when the news hit, two weeks ago, that Cyprus was about to confiscate 7 percent of all the insured deposits in the island’s two biggest banks. Nicosia also planned to siphon off 10 percent of uninsured deposits, those above 100,000 euros ($130,000), and use that cash as well to finance Cyprus’ share of a eurozone bailout. The reaction was so scalding that the regime had to back off raiding insured deposits. The little people of Cyprus were spared. Not so the big depositors, among whom are Cypriot entrepreneurs and...

I have served as a flag-man among the pirates of offshore banking... (snip) ...why the plunder of Cyprus is probably one of the most brilliant acts of wholesale theft the world has ever known, why the stolen treasure may be thousands of times greater than has been suggested, and why the names of the victims, and the full value of the loot, will remain a mystery forever... (snip) Though it may be easy to think of offshore depositors as foreign outlaws, pirates or simply “Russians,” this is not nearly the case. Cyprus was a leader – in some circles and...

Standard & Poor’s released the latest Case-Shiller data on house prices on Tuesday, and the results weren’t pretty. In the past five years, house prices have declined to 2003 levels, and the average home declined in price by 3.9 percent over the last year alone. National politicians are scrambling to reverse the trend. But the remedy lies in state houses and town halls. Two weeks ago, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress cited the struggling housing market as their reason for extending an “emergency” subsidy for homebuyers. The taxpayer-backed Federal Housing Administration will continue to guarantee mortgages on houses worth...

~ EXCERPT ~ Both short and long-term confidence in the U.S. housing market continue to fall, with homeowners now expressing the highest level of pessimism in two years. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 15% of homeowners expect the value of their home to go up in the next year while 33% expect the opposite and think the value of their home will decline. The current figures reflect more pessimism than a month ago when 19% were optimistic and 30% pessimistic about the value of their home over the next year. Looking longer term, only 39%...

Don't say we didn't warn you. In January 2006, CNNMoney published a ranking of 299 U.S. housing markets, showing where home prices were most overvalued. Little was undervalued: Real estate was white-hot and prices were at or near what later proved to be their tops ( see here : http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/29/real_estate/buying_selling/handicapping_housing_markets/index.htm ) A total of 213 cities were overpriced, and Naples, Fla., was deemed the most insane, with 84% of homes valued over a fair market price, according to statistics compiled by National City Corp. and IHS Global Insight. That finding so rankled the Naples Chamber of Commerce and area real...

or nearly two years, home values plummeted to pre-2003 levels. Now, housing markets within the country are showing the first signs of stabilizing. clear pixel According to the latest results from the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes, which were released last week, 19 of the 20 metropolitan areas show an improvement in their annual rate of return, and 17 of the 20 metropolitan areas saw price increases in August over July. In September, existing-home sales increased to 5.57 million units, up 9.4% from August, according to the National Association of Realtors. “We’ve already seen immediate signs of a housing recovery,”...

With home values in free fall in many places, it might follow logically that property taxes would go down as well. Not so in San Diego County. The county assessor's office predicts that property taxes will increase this year for 75 percent of homes and other properties. That would produce a projected $91 million in additional revenue to the county, cities, school districts and other jurisdictions. “We don't have a choice,” said Jeff Olson, chief of county property assessment services. The mandate comes from Proposition 13, the 1978 tax-limitation measure, and subsequent regulations. The state initiative, passed when skyrocketing inflation...

California could pay the price for the foreclosure crisis for years to come, thanks to Proposition 13, the 1978 voter initiative that caps property taxes. As banks feverishly dump foreclosed homes at cut-rate prices, and as neighboring homes change hands at similar bargain-basement rates, those amounts are enshrined as the new basis for determining property tax until the homes are sold again. Under Prop. 13, that basis can rise a maximum of just 2 percent a year, even if the home is worth significantly more. The consequence is likely to be a revenue crunch for the public services funded by...

Homes in the United States have lost trillions of dollars in value during 2008, with nearly 11.7 million American households now owing more on their mortgage than their homes are worth, real estate website Zillow.com said on Monday. U.S. homes are set to lose well over $2 trillion in value during 2008, according to an analysis of recent Zillow Real Estate Market Reports. Home values declined 8.4 percent year-over-year during the first three quarters of this year, compared to the same period in 2007, the reports showed. U.S. home values lost $1.9 trillion from the first of the year through...

Catching a Wave Out of Pricey California - Migration of young professional families may be creating a 'smart belt' in the Sun Belt. By Stephanie Simon and Lianne Hart, Times Staff Writers AUSTIN, Texas — Soaring property values in California have made many homeowners there rich — and many real estate agents here delighted. In an exodus that some demographers say could reshape the American landscape, young professional families are increasingly fleeing the exorbitant coast for Austin, Dallas or San Antonio, for Atlanta, Denver or Phoenix, for Charlotte, N.C. They're selling their cramped "starter homes" in California, some worth $500,000...