Cheryl Bourland's blog

The amount of new home construction finally rose in July after hitting a nine-month low in June, although the underwhelming rise will do little to ease inventory pressure. The Commerce Department reported last week that total housing starts rose to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 1.17 million units last month, which was less than a 1% increase over the nine-month low in June of 1.16 million units. Although the increase is certainly good news, its small scale is expected to do little to satisfy home buyer demand or cool rising home prices.

Although the housing market bubble burst over a decade ago, it is still fresh in the minds of many Americans. Given current high price growth and slowing sales, anyone with a stake in housing can't help but worry if another correction is on the horizon. Luckily, in a new article written by National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun, he argues that the underlying market conditions in 2018 are fundamentally different than those that existed prior to the last crash. Keep reading to learn why he believes that "the likelihood of a nationwide home price collapse is near nil for the foreseeable future."

You've heard it a million times before: increasing your credit score can have amazing benefits. However, you might be skeptical that moving this seemingly-magical number up a few points can really make all that much of a difference. LendingTree decided to prove the value of a great credit score by quantifying the money that someone with a "very good" score would save in interest compared to someone with a "fair" score. They found that a score of "very good" would save you over $29,000 on mortgage debt alone!