A few weeks ago, I told you about irregularities in the accounting of foreclosures: One researcher found errors or “questionable” fees in almost half the cases she examined: interest rate miscalculation; late fees; overnight mail fees; “demand fees”; payoff statement fees; property inspection fees over and over; checks lost or outright destroyed by the lender [...]

I wish I could get away without mentioning the biggest drop in housing prices ever measured — matching the previous record set just last quarter. We are talking about a year-over-year drop of 4.5%. Tim Iocono has charted the action of 20 local housing markets for you. According to the L.A. Times, homeowners are asking [...]

Las Vegas is considered by many people to be one of the great dining cities of the world.  This being the case, it has been frustrating to me is that Las Vegas restaurant guides focus almost entirely on the Strip.  Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of very good restaurants on the Strip, [...]

I’ve written a rather lengthy post on the government’s response to the current mortgage crisis, based largely on this New York Times item by a Yale economics and finance professor. You can read it at my personal site.

Thanks to BoingBoing for pointing out this USA Today story about Teller’s 10 acre mansion retreat near the edge of town.  Teller is the “quiet” half of comedian/magician act Penn and Teller. Interestingly enough, Teller is his full name!

Recently I watched this item on a family that thinks they saved $26,000 by selling their home themselves. First, I feel a little gypped that 60 minutes bothered posting this one minute and eight second long clip, and then made me sit through a 30 second commercial to see it. But I digress. This couple [...]

The other day, I promised I would tell you a bit about a new Master Planned Community that I visited. It’s called Providence. When complete, it will have 7000 homes, 2 elementary schools (the first to open in 2009), one junior high, one police and fire station, and 2 parks. There are 15 different builders [...]

Nevada doesn’t do “primary elections.” Instead we have a caucus. It’s fairly early, on January 19, which explains why the candidates are spending so much time in Nevada. It’s a little different, so the nice folks at the Las Vegas Review-Journal have put together some information to help de-mystify the whole thing. Here’s how you [...]

Yesterday, Fannie Mae had a big conference call to discuss changes to their accounting. Earlier in the week, Fortune Magazine accused them of trying to hide losses in the changes. Unfortunately, the conference call was sufficiently unclear that CNBC had to call them back and make them explain it better: First, they said the Fortune [...]

You may have read that Vegas is a rapidly growing city. Thousands of people move to the Las Vegas Valley every month, and many of those people have kids. Those kids, in turn, go to school. And that means that the Clark County School District is almost continually building new schools and hiring new teachers. [...]