A WORD ABOUT THAT AMEX DEAL: Regarding that credit card application, keep in mind that Amex may notice a whole bunch of applications for an almost-dead product and may notice a distinct lack of profitability for applications from late December and early January. Amex may then decide to give the dreaded Financial Review to people whose spending seems high. Or they may not, I have no idea, but you may want to consider the possibility. For the record, I’m out on this one–my Wells Fargo 5% card has mostly been gathering dust since the baby came, plus we just did an app-o-rama about a month ago.
FREE HOUSE: Some of you may recall the guide to getting free land, but now The Latest Scheme To Revitalize Detroit has taken things a step further as somebody wants to give free houses to writers:
“Write A House is a Detroit-based literary organization that uses the wide range of available home stock in Detroit to build up support for the literary arts in the city. It’s like a writers-in-residence program, but the writers get to keep the homes, forever.”
The deal is this: A neighborhood that is blighted with abandoned homes was chosen as the place to develop an arts colony. Then, Write A House partnered with Young Detroit Builders, an organization that trains young people in construction and renovation. (So the project benefits both writers and the young people who will achieve new skills fixing up houses.) The group’s first home (for which they are looking for funding via an Indiegogo campaign) is one of three homes the group has bought and will be fixing up — all within walking distance of each other, in an effort to build community.
The big question: do bloggers count as writers?
WILL MORTGAGES GET MORE EXPENSIVE?: Signs point to yes:
This week, the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced new guidelines that could add as much as a half point to the interest rate that a fixed-rate borrower pays. Fannie and Freddie do not originate new mortgages. But they buy about two-thirds of the conventional mortgages that banks underwrite.
The tougher lending rules are set for March. But banks will begin phasing them in next month, when another set of federal rules known as ability-to-repay and the qualified mortgage also kick in. These rules establish stiff penalties for banks that write unconventional mortgages that later go bad. That means banks have less wiggle room to work with borrowers that may be self employed, at a new job or paid on commission. On top of all this, the Fed in January will begin winding down its bond-buying program, which has helped keep mortgage rates low.
Speaking of the Fed’s winding down of purchases, here’s an interesting graph. As you can see, all the “taper” talk is much ado about almost nothing:
TINY HOUSE WATCH: One not-so-easy way to save money is to design and build a house all by yourself. An architect named Macy Miller did just that, spending $11,000 to build a 200 square foot house. NPR has the story along with details on why the toilet was the most expensive part of the house.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION: As long as we’re covering real estate, would you believe this poor couple’s house has been hit by a car not once, not twice, but 11 times?
And as long as we’re talking about horrible things happening to real estate, here’s a gif of that sinkhole in Louisiana swallowing some trees.
“Wells Fargo 5% card has mostly been gathering dust since the baby came” – I actually thought this was a crime?! You have a DUTY to abuse the charlatans who have invaded your home town 🙂
Mea culpa, mea culpa maxima…
Serious question: is CVS cracking down near you? Part of the issue for me is that three months ago I had no problems with VRs at CVS, whereas now they only take cash, and this has happened now at four different CVS’s.
Interesting you say that… someone on DansDeals was saying problems in Charlotte too. Personally here in RDU things are still as easy as ever. I am buying in $5k chunks without a blink of an eyelid. Of course it could all change over night, but for now it’s still guns blazing. I bought $10k since I got back from Whistler, all of a day and a half ago. You can still do GC at grocery stores though, and liquidate via the Waltons either with billpay (my preferred) or MOs.
I genuinely think WF are the fairest sport in all of this. They are the biggest beneficiary of free funding from the Fed and pass none of that along to consumer. Indeed they have no free checking products available anymore. I know from direct experience they are holding on to all kinds of highly toxic assets at inflated valuations in hideous SPVs that push the absolute boundaries of accounting standards. All because they have so much free money they don’t need to get rid of them and put them into the private enterprise sector where they belong. (Much the same for most of those “stable” German banks too BTW). So taking them for a ride to earn a few thousand bucks in cash back is, I feel, the least we can do as honest citizens. Oh wait I’m not a citizen yet. Honest residents then.
Do you buy in a single transaction, or are you referring to daily limit of 5k? Cashiers here in Texas make me ring up only 2 in a single txn…and I don’t do multiple back to back to avoid unnecessary fraud alerts and raising even more eyebrows.
Single transaction. Drivers lic gets scanned after second card each time. Trust me the volumes some people are doing…. you are a long, long, long way from anybody raising any eyebrows.