Big-time credit-card reform legislation kicks in soon and, on balance, should prove helpful to consumers.
Final rules from the Federal Reserve, stemming from legislation enacted last year by Congress, will give cardholders more control, greater protections and enhanced disclosures when dealing with card issuers.
“A lot of the ‘gotcha’ rate practices are coming to an end,” said Odysseas Papadimitriou, chief executive officer and founder of Cardhub.com. more…
Valley home builders might not be building a record number of houses lately, but they’re not sitting around idly.
A prime example is Shea Homes, a privately held San Diego company with a sizable footprint in the
Vowing to “bring back the excitement of buying a home,” Shea revealed seven new designs with a modular, utilitarian look and feel.
The energy-efficient houses are available in the
Selling under the IKEA-esque brand name SPACES, the homes are offered at prices from $190,000 to $230,000.
Their modern, streamlined look is a departure from typical tract-home design. But what’s far more revolutionary is the SPACES marketing collateral, which reads like an indictment of boom-era, bigger-is-better consumer values.
“Gone are useless walls, hallways and rarely used formal rooms,” one Shea news release says, explaining the homes’ open design of the floor plans.
Another passage touts “smart, sleek, energy-efficient designs, without antiquated features wasting resources and space.”
Kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms - which the new homes do have - are referred to as eat spaces, splash spaces and dream spaces.
Meanwhile, rooms not included in SPACES homes are referred to by their Victorian-mansion equivalents (the family room becomes the parlor, etc.).
Shea said it conducted extensive market research before crafting the new approach.
For more on the new SPACES homes, visit www.sheaspaces.com.
The money will come in the next few months as part of the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
Funding is awarded based on need.
In early 2009, several Valley communities, Maricopa and Pima counties and the Arizona Department of Housing split up $121 million from the first round of funding. Most
More of the latest round of funding will go toward fixing up foreclosure homes to make them affordable rentals.
“This additional $2 billion in funding will help stabilize hard-hit communities,” HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said, discussing the new round of funds.
The
It’s also high season for the lucrative but less boastful backbone of
The
The sale of state buildings to investors was so successful that
The two-day sale that ended Wednesday drew $735.4 million from investors.
“We’ll have the money in state coffers by January 26,” said Alan Ecker, a spokesman for the state Department of Administration. more…
LOS ANGELES - KB Home capped its fiscal year with the first quarterly profit since 2007 because of a change in federal tax laws and said it expects to turn a profit this year.
KB Home sold 8,341 homes during the 12 months that ended in November and forecasts sales of 8,000 to 9,000 homes this year.
The company’s new orders, however, rose just 12 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the year-earlier period. That disappointed investors who were anticipating that KB Home, which caters to first-time buyers, would get a bigger lift from a federal tax credit for new owners. more…
LifeLock Inc. is looking to expand beyond its core identity-theft prevention products that have made the Tempe-based startup a darling among venture capitalists and the target of lawsuits from customers and competitors.
In the process, the private company is expected to go public this year. more…
The number of Americans filing for personal bankruptcy rose by nearly a third in 2009, a surge largely driven by foreclosures and job losses.
And more people are filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which liquidates assets to pay off some debts and absolves the filers of others. That is significant because a 2005 overhaul of federal bankruptcy laws aimed to encourage Chapter 13 filings, which force consumers to sign onto debt-repayment plans in exchange for keeping certain assets. more…
Pulte Homes is hoping to invigorate home sales and reach a milestone in the mass production of solar homes at two of its age-restricted Del Webb communities in
As of Jan. 1, Pulte began offering homes with solar roofs inside two
With an additional 11,200 homes yet to be built in the two communities, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based Pulte said they have the potential to become
The empty Centerpoint high-rise condominium towers that loom over
A foreclosure auction date is set for April, according to documents filed on Tuesday with the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. The property could be sold to the highest bidder.
ML Manager LLC, acting on behalf of a dizzying list of investors, filed foreclosure on the high-rises. Officials for ML Manager placed the unpaid principal of condo developer Tempe Land Co. LLC at $135 million.
Centerpoint’s foreclosure is the second high-profile Valley development to be foreclosed on in less than two weeks. more…
The Valley’s real estate boom-and-bust cycle left an almost unimaginable 80 million square feet of excess office, retail and industrial space on the rental market at the close of 2009 - the rough equivalent of 1,600 football fields.
The unprecedented oversupply of commercial real estate sent vacancy rates soaring in all categories, while lease prices tumbled, according to reports from area commercial real-estate firms. more…