Housing Chatter delivers the news you need to know about current events in the housing market in simple terms. We have no political or institutional affiliations so you can be confident that our content and commentary is unbiased. Housing Chatter is brought to you by your professional Realtor®.

Short sale tax break passes in House

Homeowners who had short sales in 2014 may not be facing massive tax bills after all, after the House of Representatives passed a one-year extension of the Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Act on Wednesday. According to a report from the Chicago Tribune, the House passed the extension of Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Act, which was included in the Tax Increase Prevent ... Read More »

Fully 70% of homebuyers don’t know about down payment assistance Down payment is one of two biggest hurdles for first-time buyers

Seventy percent of U.S. adults are unaware of down-payment assistance programs available for middle-income homebuyers in their community, according to findings from the second annual America at Home survey commissioned by NeighborWorks America. NeighborWorks America is national nonprofit community development corporation based in Washington, DC. “Down-paym ... Read More »

Deck the Halls? Maybe Not, If Your Home Is For Sale

For many buyers and sellers, December is still an active real estate market. Serious buyers will view homes and negotiate contracts right up until Christmas Eve. It’s a good time for sellers to have their homes listed, because competition is slim — conventional wisdom and history trend toward listing in the spring. But listing a home in December begs the qu ... Read More »

The Big Decorating Mistake We All Make

Between arranging furniture, choosing the right paint colors, and making sure you position your lighting just right, decorating is never quite as easy as it seems. There are, after all, people earning degrees in this stuff. Luckily, though, there's YouTube. And with it, access to professionals like designer Ilse Crawford who recently sat down with Savannah ... Read More »

Changing the World One Letter At a Time

By Harry Belafonte and Steven W. Hawkins A young black man, Ricardo Mattos dos Santos, is killed while playing soccer with his friends in the Bahia state of Brazil, shot to death while begging for his life and insisting he was not who the attackers were looking for. Five years later, his 19-year-old brother Enio is abducted from his home and also shot to de ... Read More »

WTF Is Scentscaping?

There's no doubt you've walked into a hotel or restaurant before and thought to yourself, "How do they make it smell so darn good in here?" Well -- we think we've gotten to the bottom of it and no, it isn't just a few well-placed candles or oil diffusers. It's scentscaping. Scentscaping might not be a bonafide job title, and we know this because the way we ... Read More »

15 Facts About Ants and How to Keep Them at Bay

1. Ants are related to wasps and bees (as evidenced by their trim abdomens, or "wasp waists"). All of these creatures are members of the insect order Hymenoptera. 2. Although human beings tend to look down on them, ants are actually organized into a sophisticated society, which researchers study as a model of cooperation. 3. Ants are to be found almost eve ... Read More »

Hoping to Buy a Home in 2015? Start Planning Now

At the start of a new year, many real estate agents’ phones begin ringing with calls from potential buyers who want to get in the market. If buying a home is on your agenda for 2015, now’s the time to begin working toward your goal. Here’s a guide to the home buying experience to get you started. The dreaming phase We are all more connected than ever, whic ... Read More »

The biggest obstacle to a mortgage market recovery that nobody is talking about

Anyone following the public discourse about the mortgage market knows that lending is overly tight right now. And those who follow the issue closely understand that a primary driver of this tightness is uncertainty over how Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration enforce their underwriting rules. What most do not realize is that that t ... Read More »

Renting In The US Is Now Twice As Expensive As Buying

As rent soars across the US, Zillow found that renting a home is half as affordable as buying one. In the third quarter of 2014, US renters could expect to spend about 30% of their incomes on rent, while those buying homes could expect to spend just 15% of their monthly incomes on their mortgage payment. The report reveals a big shift from the years before ... Read More »