pocketmint

Tag: mortgages

1. Retrospective rubbernecking at the subprime mortgage disaster

   17 November 2011

   As I mentioned once before, I have a block on ‘formal’ book reviews, so consider this just a friendly little chat, okay? I trust Stacy’s opinions implicitly, particularly on matters of journalism, so when in passing she praised Michael Lewis’ The Big Short, the very next thing I did was hit the library web site [...]

2. To buy or to rent: failing to predict the future of housing

   26 June 2009

   In the last month I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that purchasing this house when we did was a huge financial error. It’s been hard, and I’ve engaged in a lot of self-flagellation over the subject. We closed on this house December 1, 2006. Two and a half years later, we’ve paid [...]

3. Put that money where it belongs, dammit

   8 June 2009

   Here’s yet another reason why checking online account information regularly is a good idea: My regular monthly electronic payment on our second mortgage went out to Bank of America on June 3. On June 4 I manually sent an extra $2000 against the principal. On June 7 I checked our mortgage accounts online. Turns out [...]

4. The giant sucking sound at the bottom of the global pool

   22 August 2008

   If you’re not a regular listener of This American Life, you may have missed the May episode entitled “The Giant Pool of Money”. It explains why what we have now isn’t just a ‘sub-prime mortgage lending crisis’ but a ‘worldwide credit crisis.’ It’s masterfully written, taking all the jargon and translating it into plain, often [...]