Monthly Archives: August 2006

From the Times Trenton: Lawmakers turn to residents for ideas to lower property taxes Lawmakers struggling to lower New Jersey’s property taxes will turn their attention tonight to residents who may have new ideas on how to lighten the burden. … Continue reading →

From Newsday: Home buyers and borrowers relieved The Federal Reserve may have helped Hempstead resident Dean Giamundo buy a house. The Fed’s decision to keep its federal funds rate at 5.25 percent yesterday likely will lead to some stability in … Continue reading →

Great piece piece from Jersey Journal this morning, by Earl Morgan: Neglecting us, while hoping rich move in There’s this thing I’ve come to describe as the “entropy attitude.” You know what I’m talking about: Deterioration is natural and inevitable, … Continue reading →

From the Asbury Park Press: Property taxes go up faster than incomes Property tax increases greatly outpaced personal income growth in the region’s suburbs between 2000 and 2004, a turnaround from the 1990s, according to a report published Monday. Property … Continue reading →

From the Federal Reserve: FOMC statement The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its target for the federal funds rate at 5-1/4 percent. Economic growth has moderated from its quite strong pace earlier this year, partly reflecting a … Continue reading →

This one comes to us from Jake Freivald, a homeowner selling his home in West Orange. I thought it was interesting enough to post up, simply because we seldom see the “other side” of the transaction on this blog. Why … Continue reading →

From the Herald News: A quick fix? About a year ago, Betty Holley, 76, looked at her bank account and got nervous. The tiny pension she earned as an Essex County nurse was gone. Her husband’s IRA from driving a … Continue reading →

From the Wall Street Journal: As Data Point to Slowdown, Housing Market May Land Harder Than Economists Predict Home prices in some parts of the country are falling. Builders are scaling back. Bubble or not, the biggest housing boom in … Continue reading →

From the Courier News: Sierra Club wants N.J. to re-examine tax break It’s not how well some people farm their land but how well they farm the government. So says the Sierra Club in a recently announced campaign to call … Continue reading →

By request, another edition of Tell Them What You’ll Pay. There was some confusion the last time we tried to do this, we ended up with a 100 comment long discussion on the example I picked. I’ve received a number … Continue reading →

From the New York Times: The Houses That Wouldn’t Move The Balduccis put their 1951 colonial on the market in early May. They held seven open houses, drawing 10 or so potential buyers, but they still had not gotten a … Continue reading →

From the New York Times: Revitalizing a Former Factory Town THIS town named after a father of invention — Thomas Alva Edison — is facing the challenge of reinventing itself. Edison has already shown it has the mettle for such … Continue reading →

Observations about your local areas, comments on news stories or the New Jersey housing bubble, Open House reports, etc. If you have any questions you wanted to ask earlier in the week but never posted them up, let’s have them. … Continue reading →

Payrolls are in, from Bloomberg: U.S. July Payrolls Rise 113,000; Unemployment Rate at 4.8% Employers in the U.S. added fewer jobs than expected in July and the unemployment rate rose for the first time since November, showing the labor market … Continue reading →