After several days of thrashing, I managed to get things moving in a big way on our house refinance; the new contractors got their stuff to the guys at the energy-audit firm, and the energy-audit firm expects to have the final report available to ship to the lenders tomorrow (Friday).  *glyph of great relief* This will enable the refinance to go ( Read more... )

Now that the Republicans don’t seem be be getting any leverage out of calling Democrats a buncha liberals (’socialists‘ seems to be the term in use, and I’m waiting for ‘pinko Commie’ any day now), they are now starting to go after each other; Rush Limbaugh and Michael Steele are going at each other for being a disgrace to the party and so on.

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Blago appointed Burris’s son Roland II to a state job handling housing funds.  But it turns out that the dude (who was working in his Dad’s law firm until he got the new state job in September) has some serious financial problems - a huge unpaid tax lien to the state of Illinois and his house is about to be foreclosed on.  Some GOP sorts think that ( Read more... )

Forgot to mention that the foot doc is pleased with my progress on healing up the streesed spot on my foot, and that the orthotic seems to be working very well and comfortably!

That last part surprised me a good deal; I expected it to be a major PITA, and it really isn’t.   He says the thing is only good for about a year, however.  I’ll deal with ( Read more... )

• Senator Schumer is saying that if a state government doesn’t want any of the stimulus money, they shouldn’t be forced to take it; however, you can’t pick what parts you will or won’t take.  Sounds good to me.   And Governor Sanford of South Carolina says that he’ll pray for you if you’re down and out, but horrors, can’t take that stimulus money. I ( Read more... )

The energy audit specifics say tht we spend just under $1000 a year on heating and $131 on cooling, and that the air sealing stuff and insulation that they recommend would save about $475 a year; not insignificant amounts.    I don’t trust those cooling numbers, and I have to present to the lender some sort of estimate on how much the fixes would ( Read more... )

• Downtown Chicago italian beef joint is facing foreclosure; the owner’s partner’s daughter’s illness sucked up the partner’s money. 
  Chicago newly-built suburban house was discovered by the local village to be partially in a flood plain.  The village’s suggestion?  Tear down the half of the house just over the line.
• Chicken distributor starts ( Read more... )

I’m not a financier or economist by a long shot. I will direct the curious to the following sources for a better discussion on the Geithner Plan and so on. And I will note that it’s all making me really nervous that Geithner hasn’t seemingly the cojones to take on Wall Street directly. It’s really hard to tell because even the experts are ( Read more... )

Along with the requests on jobs, I’m being queried about my thoughts on the stimulus;  my position is that all parties are involved in varieties of Jedi Mind Trick.  The most angrifying (sic) ones are the Republicans, frankly, and I thought I’d seen stupid mixed with power-hungry mendacity before, but this just takes the cake,  It’s hard to watch ( Read more... )

In Britain, new home purchase mortgages are getting to be a nightmare to obtain; banks are demanding a 40-50% down payment for starters.

Nearly a third of housing sales in the US are now either short sales (the bank agrees to take a hit because the value of the house is less than the mortgage amount) or foreclosures, and the rate is far higher in ( Read more... )