Word: markets
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Selling their old place still won't be easy. A smattering of opportunistic buyers - while a good start - doesn't unlock an entire market. Thanks to falling home prices, some 20% of mortgage holders nationwide owe more than their house is worth. Many of them are trapped, unable to move - to resettle in Boise, say, and buy the Judges' old house...
...embellishments like bay windows and take fewer materials and less time. A 2,000-sq.-ft. (186 sq m) house can be built for $10,000 to $15,000 less and priced to reflect that, since Barton's main competition is distressed sellers. "The foreclosure and short-sale market is a monster," he says...
...devastating thing for the Lupos is that they'd gotten Wells Fargo, their bank, to agree to a short sale. The Lupos had found a buyer who would pay market price for the house - short of what was owed - and Wells agreed to forgive the rest of the couple's debt. The sticking point was a second lien - a $75,000 home-equity loan - owned by a different division of Wells. The buyer got spooked and walked. The Lupos have since moved into a rental house and now live in fear of the bank coming after them. "It's humiliating...
Which goes to show that for all the glimmers of hope in housing, there is still a long slog ahead. Because fundamentally, what a rational housing market means is that people can afford the homes they have and move to bigger ones only once they have decent and growing paychecks...
...turned out to be an object lesson in unintended consequences. Because it exempted performance-based pay, the new limit accelerated an already-in-the-works shift toward using stock options as the main piece of executive compensation. Far from being reined in, executive pay - with help from a bull market in stocks - skyrocketed. (See pictures of TIME's Wall Street covers...