MILWAUKEE – March 20, 2008 – You should hear what people say behind Scott LeMarr’s back.
He’s a Muskego, Wis.-based home inspector who operates Honest Home Inspections LLC. House hunters call him in to examine a house they want to buy, and his job is to sniff out impending collapse of expensive necessities like the heating system, major appliances, the roof and so on. Read the rest of this entry »
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – March 20, 2008 – The tax cut that voters will be asked to approve in November will do more than save property owners money. It will force lawmakers to do what they have refused to do for nearly 70 years: modernize sales-tax rules to raise revenue from products and services that have never been taxed. Read the rest of this entry »
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – March 19, 2008 – The idea of taxing services, which could include everything from hair cutting and lawn mowing to lawyering and accounting, may have new life in Florida. Read the rest of this entry »
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – March 17, 2008 – A year ago, Jeff Shea began buying up rental properties around the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, from which he had only recently graduated with a business major. Shea, 23, who lives in Chicago, owns three rental homes near campus, including a four-bedroom house he bought for $138,000 and rents to four students for $1,800 a month. Read the rest of this entry »
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – March 17, 2008 – Florida’s best chance of voting on another property-tax revision this year happens Monday, when the state tax panel that has the ability to put constitutional amendments directly on the November ballot votes on three proposals. Read the rest of this entry »
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – March 14, 2008 – A special Senate panel investigating how insurers set homeowner rates delivered a broad set of recommendations for the current legislative session and beyond. Read the rest of this entry »
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – March 13, 2008 – Insurance regulators issued an order Wednesday allowing homeowners currently insured by the state-run pool to have the first choice of accepting an offer of coverage from a private carrier. Read the rest of this entry »
KEY WEST, Fla. – March 10, 2008 – Intrepid home shoppers are venturing back into some of the nation’s hardest-hit real-estate markets, convinced they can cherry-pick good deals amid broad price declines. Read the rest of this entry »
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – March 7, 2008 – A second major property tax-cutting proposal advanced Thursday in a commission that proposes state constitutional amendments, but only one is likely to go on the November ballot. Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON – March 3, 2008 – Seven years in the credit-counseling business didn’t prepare Ann Estes for the alarming trend she began noticing last fall: As her clients’ mortgage bills became unaffordable, a growing number of them began paying their credit card bills before – and sometimes instead of – their mortgages. Read the rest of this entry »