Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Who’s Afraid of Reverse Mortgages?
When you close on the purchase of a house, especially if you are a first-time homebuyer, you have high hopes about paying off the mortgage. You make a budget where you pay more than the minimum payment each month, thereby making a dent in the principal so that you pay less interest over time. … Read More »
Beware of Zero Percent Down Mortgages
Whether or not you were old enough to understand debt and financial risk when the 2008 housing market crisis happened, you were probably dismayed to hear about the people who borrowed subprime mortgage loans and then, to no one’s surprise, defaulted on them. How could anyone be so unscrupulous as to lend huge mortgages… Read More »
What Do the New Buy Now Pay Later Regulations Mean for Your Efforts to Get Out of Debt?
Is buy now pay later (BNPL) a financially sound choice for people who want to avoid racking up interest charges and credit card debt? Is it subprime lending that consumers choose because they do not have access to more affordable and less risky forms of credit? It is both. As with so many other… Read More »
Can a Short Refinance Keep the Foreclosure Notices Away?
Mortgage foreclosure does not happen overnight. To a pessimist, this means that it is an agonizing process where the mortgage lender swats at you for months while taunting you with promises that it will leave you alone if only you can find a way to pay an increasingly exorbitant amount of money by an… Read More »
Financial Stability Begins With a Bank Account
Every day, millions of Americans check their checking account balances, too busy worrying about how little money is in there to realize that a lot of people have it much worse. They might be dangerously close to having a negative balance, and the balance might even dip below zero for a short time until… Read More »
Cresco Couple Loses $45,000 After Home Improvement Contractor Bails on Project
Looking at price tags is not a pleasant experience these days. You would think that you would get used to fast food meals and children’s T-shirts costing double digits, but if you are older than 30, you can remember a time when ordinary items like these were more affordable, and the post-pandemic prices of… Read More »
Pennsylvania Man Who Previously Served Prison Sentence for Investment Fraud Gets Conviction for Home Contractor Fraud
Anyone who has ever tried to find a job after getting a criminal conviction can tell you how much people with prior convictions face an uphill battle; perhaps a prior conviction is even a factor in your own current debt problems or those of someone close to you. Sometimes people must enter an entirely… Read More »
Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors Is an Alternative to Small Business Bankruptcy
The statistic that fewer than half of new businesses continue to operate five years after they were founded if your small business is part of the majority, where the business closes in less than five years without ever having become profitable. The task remains of closing down your business and settling your debts. You… Read More »
How to Save Money on Mortgage Interest Like They Do in the Netherlands
Adding the name of a foreign nationality to a product is a time-honored marketing gimmick. Everyone loves French toast and German chocolate cake, even if the closest equivalent in their namesake countries bears little resemblance to the product we look forward to buying from Denny’s or Giant Eagle. Even things that are profoundly unpleasant… Read More »
It’s a PITI Your Home Mortgage Payment Is So Unaffordable
Affordable homeownership is becoming an increasingly distant dream. It has never been harder to qualify for a home mortgage, and if you have one, it has never been harder to keep up with the payments. Interest rates have remained painfully high for about the past two years. People with fixed rate mortgages that they… Read More »
