Seriously though, the government has again ramped up their efforts to help the millions of Americans who are upside down in their mortgage and need to sell for reasons of financial hardship. Yet another acronym lurks…HAFA which stands for Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program goes into effect April 5, 2010. HAFA is designed to simplify and streamline the short… Read more
As part of my ongoing rant about the high condo assessments in Chicago I’d like to revisit a topic I covered a while ago – what is the appropriate tradeoff between price and assessments? In that previous post I got into some fairly esoteric finance details about discounted cash flows and perpetuities that may have… Read more
In Chicago renting is often a very good alternative to buying. In the short run it will often be cheaper – aside from all the softer benefits of buying a home. However, if renting is such a good deal then the flip side must also be true: renting is not such a good deal for… Read more
Let’s assume that after adjusting for all the factors in my earlier post on comparing Chicago condos with different assessments you are still left with a choice between two condominiums that have different assessments. How do you then factor in that difference – especially if the condo with the lower assessments has a higher price?… Read more
A bit more than 20 years ago we bought our first home in Evanston – a condo with electric heat. After we got our first winter electric bill I knew we were in trouble. The cost of heating our 2 bedroom, 1 bath condo was so outrageous that I thought something was wrong with the… Read more
