US Finance World

Lenders seize 110 properties every day. Heres how to keep the roof over your head!

In the first three months of this year, mortgage lenders repossessed (seized) more than 9,100 homes, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).

Only 7,900 homes were taken back in the final quarter of 2010, so repossessions leapt 15% in the first three months of this year. However, this is in line with seasonal variations, with fewer people kicked out of their homes in the festive season. Indeed, home seizures between January and March 2011 were down a tenth (10%) on the same period of 2010.

Alas, the CML predicts that 40,000 mortgage borrowers will lose their homes this year, thanks to difficulties with paying their home loans. In other words, mortgage lenders seize 110 homes each and every day. This which works out at 4.6 homes every hour of the year, or one repossession every 13 minutes.

Of course, it’s a personal tragedy whenever homeowners lose the roof over their heads.

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The S&P Case Shiller Home Price index was updated yesterday with data through March 2011, or 2011 Q1. Here is the []. Here is the chart:

Click to enlarge. Sources: S&P Indices

Nationally, home prices are back to their mid-2002 levels. This means that any run-up in home prices between 2002 and the 2006 peak has been erased. On average home prices are selling at the same value they were nine years ago and are 34% below their 2006Q2 peak.

I feel like this whole thing is still going to take a while to fully unwind.

Unless youve been living under a rock, you have watched some kind of makeover show. Whether its fashion, homes, makeup or weight loss, reality shows depicting the makeover process are very popular. I recently interviewed Gil Effron, author of How to Give Your Business an Extreme Marketing Makeover, about his 5-step process to help you makeover your sales and marketing processes.

For a high level overview of what Gil shared, read this post. If youd rather go beyond reading and start applying, scroll to the bottom of this post, click the gray arrow, turn up the volume and enjoy my interview, using the time stamps to find what interests you most. You can use the link below to download the podcast to your favorite mobile device, or you can listen, download and subscribe via iTunes.

1. Take inventory (4:04). Before you can change anything, you need to know what to change. Go into your marketing closet and see whats there. How are you marketing your business?

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The dollar bill needs you.

A growing number of merchants won’t accept cash anymore. That includes a lot of airlines, which insist you pay by credit card if you want to buy a drink or a sandwich on board. And now comes news that the U.S. Treasury is printing fewer dollars, as we move towards an all-plastic economy.

Great news for the banks. Great news for the card companies. Great news for the marketing establishment, which can now pore through our transactions and our personal lives in greater and greater detail.

Me? Call me a contrarian, or just call me ornery, but I view this with gloom. This not a step forward. It’s a step backwards. Personally, I’ve been moving the other way. I’ve cut down on my use of credit cards and debit cards. The latest news is the final push I needed to get them out of my life completely. I’m going all cash.

Look for Brett Arends’ new column in the August issue of SmartMoney Magazine, available here and on newsstands July 14.

Here are ten reasons why.

1.

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This is Freedom week here at 20somethingfinance and with Independence Day. And heres more Freedom news for you.

I recently posted that one of my favorite credit cards, the Chase Freedom card, upped its promotion to $200 for new account holders. While thats still true, theyve now made it easier for you to get it.

Previously, you had to get the card, and then you get a $100 bonus after $500 in purchases in 3 months and then another $100 bonus when you make an additional $1,000  in purchases in 6 months.

Now, you will earn the $200 bonus cash back after making the $500 total in purchases in the first 3 months, which anyone can do when charging a portion of their groceries and/or utilities.

Chase Freedom offers:

• Up to an additional 10% cash back when you shop online through Chase.
• Unlimited 1% cash back on all other purchases, without maximum limits.
• Your rewards never expire.
• No annual fee.

Starting this past week and going through Sept.

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Todays #SmallBizRollCall was empowering and, most importantly, FUN! Sponsored by Paula Cattano of body care for active lifestyles, in Apex, North Carolina, todays event is the first of many! It features me and Paula, prizes, information to inspire you to be successful in your small business, and a discount code you can use to get 15% off Paulas products until midnight tonight. (Ill share the code in a bit.)

Thanks to everyone who joined, especially Pookalita Dawn Fitch who won a prize!

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Sustainable Profits

The challenges of a waste-recycling business.

I started TerraCycle almost a decade ago with a goal of making a profit by eliminating waste, and today our company offers free collection programs for more than 45 waste streams in the United States, along with similar programs in 15 other countries. The premise is simple: sign up on our Web site, fill a box with a specific type of waste, send it TerraCycle and we’ll donate 2 cents (or the foreign equivalent) for every unit of waste to the charity or school of your choice.

We have been able to demonstrate that we can handle major volumes of waste and that there is strong consumer demand for such a program. We collect, for example, about a million juice pouches from consumers every two days in America alone. The challenge is that our business model relies on brands, such as Capri Sun, to sponsor those programs — including paying for the shipping. As

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Has the shine permanently come off of Apple?

It certainly looked that way to many earlier this spring and summer, as Apple’s (AAPL) stock retreated from its all-time high of $364.90 to its Jun. 20 low of $310.50. But others remain as convinced as ever in Apple’s long-term potential and have been encouraged by Apple’s recovery over the last two weeks to its current level of $343.

What do the top-performing investment advisers think?

It would appear as though they are in the “Apple is losing its shine” camp. Consider the accompanying table, which reflects the number of upgrades and downgrades that the top performers have issued on Apple over the first half of 2011. (I defined this group of top performers to include just those advisers on the Hulbert Financial Digest’s monitored list who are ahead of a buy-and-hold in the stock market over the last decade.)

Month New Upgrades (Upgrades minus downgrades) June-1 May-1 April0 March0 February0 January+1

Notice that January was the last month in which these top performers issued more upgrades on Apple than downgrades.

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