Of all the misguided concepts I embraced when I was younger, one of the most ridiculous involved retirement planning. “Why plan for retirement?” I thought. “I’ll be dead by then.” Luckily, as I got older I wised up and realized that I needed to start planning. But I’m sad to say there are still folks [...]
A major cause of the housing crash in 2006 and 2007 was poorly documented mortgages that should not have been approved. Many of these mortgages ended in default and contributed to the four million foreclosures that cost families their homes and lowered home values by 50 percent or more in some communities. Mortgage lenders that [...]
If you missed a mortgage payment, you might want to know how it affects your credit score. Missing mortgage payments can hurt your credit score. Q: I met Ilyce at a speech she was giving last year about financial planning and retirement. Last week, I was laid off by the company that sponsored the speech. [...]
The loan modification process can be very frustrating. If your loan modification is rejected, consider selling your house in a short sale. Q: We are currently underwater on our primary home mortgage. Our mortgage has been modified twice and all payments were added to the back of mortgage. Our loan was once $216,000 and the [...]
Ilyce Glink explains how to avoid paying taxes on forgiven mortgage debt if you've done a foreclosure or short sale in Real Estate Minutes. If you go into foreclosure or complete a short sale, you could wind up owing tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS on your forgiven debt. But there’s a way [...]
Each year, the IRS sends out charming letters telling you that you didn’t report some income on your tax return. Sometimes those CP-2000 letters come as good news, like one did for a client of mine with Alzheimer’s disease whose family found $100,000 worth of bank accounts when the IRS notice showed unreported interest income. But often [...]
Plenty of people know the anxiety of overbearing debt. According to one source, households in the United States average $15,422 in credit card debt; $34,703 in student loan debt; and $149,782 in mortgage debt. With all of that pressure, many people think it’s impossible to improve their financial situations. However, with some work and smart [...]
In honor of Military Saves, I thought it would be appropriate to share how I, an Army veteran who had over $32,000 of credit card debt, was able to pay off debt by taking a few lessons from the military and applying them to my finances. Military Saves is a week when the military community [...]
One of the most frequent real estate questions I get asked is about prepaying mortgages. There’s a lot of push and pull in the minds of many homeowners when it comes to deciding between prepaying their mortgages and investing that money elsewhere. Most of the time, prepaying your mortgage is a perfectly good and reasonable [...]
Applying for a loan modification can affect your credit score while you wait for your loan application to be processed. Q: Unfortunately, I am stuck with one of the worst monster mega banks for my loan modification. When I applied for a loan modification, they classified me as "delinquent" while they were processing my application. [...]
