As the U.S. economy and housing markets recover, Americans are once again moving. An excellent proxy of where things are happening are the number of one-way truck rentals. U-Haul tallied 1.6 million one-way rentals in 2012. One-way truck rentals are indicative of people relocating, most… Read more

Where today can you make the best profits when flipping homes? To answer that, RealtyTrac, which offers a wealth of data in housing and mortgage markets, dug deep into housing sales across the country. Rising home prices continue to support flipping, when properties often resell… Read more

Following up from the previous post about the 10 worst jobs in the country, let’s talk the positive. And that posting for me was not pretty. Economists ranked 120 out of 200. Behind morticians, fork lift drivers—even accountants. Dang. So what are the best jobs?… Read more

As an appraiser and investor, I have always stated that a residence, to be truly considered an investment, must rent for at least 1 percent of its market value each month.  I can recall in 1990 traveling in a shuttle van in Oahu, Hawaii, with… Read more

I promise this is the last blog posting (at least for this week) reviewing, examining and comparing income taxes.    While most Americans either file their taxes or an extension on or before April 15th,  their income tax obligation did not necessarily end with the IRS. … Read more

Since 2008, it has a been a trying market for many college graduates to find a job in a location where they could also afford renting a place to live and receive a decent pay check. Forbes has reported a study completed by Rent.com looking… Read more

While there are several definitions of a recession (a period of several months in which economic activity declines), I define a recession as an extended period when the country has job losses. Jobs are everything to the economy. Period. And when it comes to housing,… Read more

The U.S. Census Bureau has just released a report examining homeownership rates and vacancy levels in both rental housing and owner-occupied housing. Nationwide, the rental housing vacancy rate for the fourth quarter of 2012 was 8.7 percent (versus 9.4 percent for Q4 2011), while the… Read more

Jobs are everything to an economy. Period. I invoke the There Is No Such Thing As A National Economy clause — T I N S T A A N E — as the economy varies from one location to another. Each month the Bureau of… Read more

If there was a list of places you would not want to live, Forbes just ranked the 10 most miserable (actually 20, but this is after all, a top 10 list). Criteria ranged from economic (unemployment, taxes) to quality of life issues (weather and commute… Read more