Our Most Popular Posts of 2009
by Tim Manni
Judging by the number of comments each post of ours has received, here’s a short list of the blog’s most popular stories of 2009. Note: If we judged by page views instead of number of comments, this list would be a little different:
“Beware of ‘www.Tagged.com’ Scam” (59 comments):
One of the latest phishing scams circumnavigating the internet these days comes from the url “www.tagged.com”. This highly-organized scam arrives in your inbox via a friend or an acquaintance’s email address. The email reads that the sender would like to share photos with you via the website “tagged.com”. The financial experts at Thrive.com say “Quickly delete [the email], and inform the friend that sent it to you that their email account has been compromised.”
“Update 1: A New Tax Deduction…for Pets?” (54 comments):
Despite the laundry list of pressing matters facing lawmakers these days — the recession, an unemployment rate of 9.4%, a national divide over the president’s proposed health care reform (just to name a few) — one U.S. lawmaker recently proposed a bill which would allow pet owners to deduct up to $3,500 for “qualified pet-care expenses.”
“Clark Howard Simplifies ‘Making Home Affordable’” (30 comments):
With all the executive summaries, Q&As, fact sheets, and guidelines, it’s easy for borrowers to get lost when dissecting all the text that has accompanied the president’s Housing Affordability and Stability Plan (HASP) in order to see if they qualify.
Clark Howard has gone the opposite route, dividing the qualifications for the “Making Home Affordable” plan into two categories: late borrowers, and current borrowers.
“Update 1: Making Home Affordable’s Impact on Foreclosure Sales” (18 comments):
What do banks do once they foreclose on a property? There has been a lot of controversy recently whether banks are holding onto foreclosed properties in order to keep home prices from dropping even lower. Diana Olick of CNBC wrote an interesting post on her blog “Realty Check” on Monday, in which she reached out to a representative from Bank of America (BofA) to get some answers.
The answers turn out to be quite interesting indeed because BofA highlights some of the exact same reasons we have detailed in past posts why the Making Home Affordable program will likely never generate the type of results the president has hoped for.
“Fannie Works to Streamline Refis” (16 comments):
Last week Fannie Mae introduced a new program that’s designed to streamline the refinance process, allowing more Americans to take advantage of historically low mortgage rates. Fannie’s new “Desktop Underwriter (DU) Refi Plus” program will expand the criteria for refi eligibility (i.e. reduced FICO requirement) by reducing the amount of documentation (such as employment information) required by lenders, even waiving an appraisal in some cases.
The blog and I would like to extend a huge “thank you” to every one of our readers! 2009 was our first full year in existence, and we like to think that we came a long way since we started the blog in July 2008.
Once again, thank you to all of our readers, and have a safe and happy new year!
