Path to wealth is through real estate holdings

ORLANDO, Fla. – Jan. 29, 2008 – Sorry, folks, this is not a get-rich-quick book. Still, you may be richer than you think, write authors Catherine McBreen and George Walper Jr. in Get Rich, Stay Rich, Pass It On.

More than 7 million American households today claim total assets of a million dollars or more. But it’s far more likely that “You’re among a group we call the mass affluent, people whose total assets add up to anywhere between $100,000 and $1 million, not including their primary residence,” according to the authors.

McBreen and Walper are managing director and president, respectively, of Spectrem Group, a research and consulting company that has been studying the affluent since 1991.


Fannie and Freddie to the rescue?

WASHINGTON – Jan. 29, 2008 – Hoping to speed delivery of its $150 billion pick-me-up for the U.S. economy, the Bush Administration reluctantly agreed to temporarily increase the size of the mortgages Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) can purchase, from $417,000 to nearly double that. Proponents of the shift hope that Fannie and Freddie – which together own or guarantee about half of the $10 trillion in total home loans in the U.S. – can unfreeze the market for those “jumbo” loans and kick-start the housing market. But for a variety of reasons, Fannie and Freddie may not be in position to cure the subprime mortgage mess.

Economists and analysts agree that boosting the mortgage limit will help inject the jumbo loan market, which is under significant strain, with much-needed financing. The additional business Fannie and Freddie will generate with that financing should eventually help bring down prices and increase the availability of such loans. However, the two companies still haven’t fully rebounded from the big accounting scandals that first came to light in 2003. With substantially thinner profit margins and tighter regulatory constraints, they have limited financial freedom to bail out others’ bad investments.