Do you have a burning question about family, friends, colleagues, and your finances? Here's your chance to get some great advice.
In "Readers to the Rescue," a feature that runs in each issue of MONEY, the magazine answers tough questions from people who are grappling with challenging situations involving money, manners and ethics. One recent question, for example, was from a man wondering how to limit his family's spending on junk food. Another questioner wanted to know what purchases he could make without consulting his spouse. Other questions have addressed touchy financial issues such as dividing up an inheritance, collecting on a loan to a relative, splitting a dinner check and asking for a raise.
For these and other problems in "Readers to the Rescue," we ask our readers for their advice, then gather together the best ideas from readers and a financial expert who weighs in as well.
So, have a difficult problem you'd like some help with? Fill out the form below, and we'll try to answer it in a future issue of MONEY.
Thanks!
Find MONEY on Facebook; follow @MONEY on Twitter.
Investors wielding cash are reviving sales volume in the housing market — but at a price.
As the National Association of Realtors noted last week, all-cash sales accounted for 31% of December existing-home purchases. All that bargain hunting drove sales of existing homes up 5% for the month, NAR says.
A steady pace of sales is critical to the housing market's recovery, of course, because we need to clear all those foreclosures and MORE
Lisa Gibbs - Jan 23, 2012 12:01 PM ET
Investing in energy-efficient home technology is like buying a home gym: Though you may be tempted by the promise of a long-term payoff, it's easy to be turned off by the upfront cost. "That's really what the challenge is — to move customers to action," says Stephen Cowell, CEO of Conservation Services Group, a company that works with utilities and conservation groups to improve energy efficiency.
You can overcome this inertia, however, by MORE
Eric Feldman - Jul 31, 2011 5:58 PM ET
In my April MONEY magazine story explaining how to snag a bargain purchasing a short sale or foreclosed home, I reported that the process can be both frustrating and time-consuming. Well, now I have first-hand knowledge of how slow and irksome these deals can be.
Wanting to take advantage of my own advice, my husband and I recently decided that the South Florida market where we live had sufficiently busted to MORE
Lisa Gibbs - May 2, 2011 1:50 PM ET
Got a burning question about personal finance? Get your answer from MONEY magazine's Help Desk.
Apr 7, 2011 1:05 PM ET
Making a bad situation worse for people already hit by the real estate downturn, thousands of Americans are facing the possibility that their homes are the equivalent of toxic-waste dumps. But while the IRS doesn't usually spring to mind as an organization that comforts the afflicted, the agency recently took action to provide a measure of help to these taxpayers.
Margaret Magnarelli - Oct 18, 2010 12:37 PM ET
Ever wonder where home prices would be today if the real estate market never overheated? Now you can get a clue, thanks to a new online tool from MacroMarkets, the company founded by housing economist Robert Shiller of the Case-Shiller home price index.
Amanda Gengler - Jul 15, 2010 2:31 PM ET
At this stage of the summer, many city dwellers are starting to head out to warm-weather weekend retreats — and realizing that the interiors need serious attention. But who wants to spend a bundle redoing a summer house, especially if the place is just a simple cottage?
If you'd rather save your money for more important things — yet refuse to live amid water-stained throw rugs, ratty upholstery, and shorted-out lamps MORE
Beth Fenner - Jun 19, 2010 4:23 PM ET
For a recent story I did about underwater mortgages, I spoke with a lot of people who owe more on their mortgage than their homes are worth. Inevitably, these people would acknowledge the option of just walking away: giving up on paying the mortgage and leaving the house to foreclosure. Just as inevitably, they would quickly add, "I would never do that."
There seem to be two camps on walking away. MORE
Lisa Gibbs - May 7, 2010 12:23 PM ET
A 53-year-old Ohio man facing foreclosure has sealed himself inside his home, refusing to leave until banks end foreclosures and evictions. According to The Toledo Blade:
"Through an agreement with the Wood County Sheriff's Office, he was to have been out of the house on U.S. 20 in Stony Ridge by midnight yesterday, but instead, members of the Toledo Foreclosure Defense League, an organization he co-founded, helped seal him inside. A MORE
Beth Braverman - May 4, 2010 1:17 PM ET
Who is falling into foreclosure? The Florida Association of Realtors wanted to find out, so it commissioned an analysis that cross-referenced three years of foreclosure filings with demographic data. The study focused only on primary residences; the idea was to ignore investors and speculators, looking instead at people who'd bought homes to live in themselves.
Some of the findings about foreclosed homeowners were pretty interesting:
Lisa Gibbs - May 4, 2010 9:57 AM ET
A pair of studies released Thursday found that more homeowners are choosing to let an underwater home go into foreclosure, despite their ability to continue to make payments. Researchers at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University found that 31% of foreclosures appeared to be strategic, up from 22% in last year.
Beth Braverman - Apr 30, 2010 4:12 PM ET
Tax Day news from around the Web:
If you still haven't filed yet, all is not lost. Here's a list of last-minute tax tips. [Lifehacker]
The slew of tax breaks enacted last year has both taxpayers and the IRS scrambling to keep up. The IRS has erroneously issued millions in tax credits even as it has detected and stopped faulty refunds. [Associated Press]
Enjoy tax day in 2010, because taxes are only going MORE
Beth Braverman - Apr 15, 2010 1:17 PM ET
Short sales are heating up now that the Obama administration has increased the amount of cash handed out to help people move and to encourage lenders to make deals.
Having just wrapped up a story about the options available to underwater borrowers, I learned some interesting things about the tax ramifications of short sales that I hadn't understood before.
Lisa Gibbs - Apr 14, 2010 10:43 AM ET
For months, economists have warned that historically low mortgage rates couldn't last forever. It looks like that promised rate increase may finally be starting to materialize.
Beth Braverman - Apr 9, 2010 8:13 AM ET
.
