Consumer

/

Home & Leisure

Hyosub Shin/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS

Home Depot's $5.5B GMS deal gets final antitrust clearance with Canadian OK

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Home Depot has checked another box for its pending acquisition, a $5.5 billion deal to buy specialty building products distributor GMS Inc.

Home Depot said Friday it has received clearance from the Canadian Competition Bureau in the form of a “no-action” letter. Home Depot and GMS both do business in Canada.

Home Depot says it has now ...Read more

Dreamstime/TNS/TNS

Do you live here? 41 states where you might outlive your retirement savings

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Forty percent of baby boomers fear they will outlive their retirement savings. Several recent studies suggest they are right to worry.

Seniors in 41 states are projected to have more expenses than income during their golden years, putting them at risk for outliving their retirement savings, according to a new study by Seniorly, an assisted ...Read more

Real estate Q&A: What happens if I can't afford to pay 'huge' condo assessment?

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Q: Our condo board just passed a huge special assessment to fix the roof. I live on a fixed income and cannot afford to pay it. Is there anything I can do? — Ruth Ann

A: Special assessments can be a financial challenge for condominium owners, especially when they come unexpectedly.

These assessments are typically levied when the association�...Read more

Kevin Clark/The Seattle Times/TNS

Seattle-area real estate agents go where homebuyers scroll

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Lights. Camera. Sold.

As new generations of homebuyers enter the housing market, real estate agents are adapting their marketing strategies to win their attention — and business.

Agents, once popping up on highway billboards and showing up at community events to draw homebuyers and sellers, are now building influencer-like presence on social...Read more

Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Real estate agent pokes fun at Twin Cities suburbs. Closings ensue

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

After two years of inconsistent revenue, Twin Cities real estate agent Bryan Clapper decided to promote himself on social media armed with only his wits, video production skills and snarky personality.

In January, he posted a now viral pitch that Canada annex Minnesota (“We’re the only state whose motto is in French!”). This spring, he ...Read more

Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

A home builder explains why Pennsylvania is an expensive place to build

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Pennsylvania is one of two states where the typical newly constructed home costs more than twice as much as the typical existing home, according to LendingTree, an online lending marketplace.

Municipalities’ approaches to development and the cost and availability of land help explain why, said Andrew Kaye, who has spent almost four decades in...Read more

Fizkes/Dreamstime/TNS

Life after debt: 5 side effects of debt freedom

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Just seven months after graduating from business school, I made the final payment on my $72,000 student loan balance. It wasn’t easy — it took extra hustle, long days and sacrifice — but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I thought our journey to debt payoff would be done after we paid off the student loans, but we took it a step further...Read more

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images North America/TNS

5 of the most overlooked investments right now

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

The S&P 500 has had a nice run over the last few years, and the big-name tech stocks that everyone knows — Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia, among others — have led the charge higher. But which stocks may have been unfairly overlooked in that fast-and-furious rally? Below are some timely suggestions, as well as some perennial spots for finding ...Read more

Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

Invitation Homes is likely the second largest homeowner in the Las Vegas Valley

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

A Dallas-based, Wall Street-traded firm owns 3,397 rental homes in the Las Vegas Valley, according to the company.

Invitation Homes, a publicly traded real estate investment trust, confirmed the number in an email response to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The company, with a current market cap of $18.5 billion, owns approximately 85,138 homes ...Read more

Real estate Q&A: Do we need to undo converted garage built by previous owner?

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Q: We bought a house a few years ago that has a converted garage, which the seller told us was done by the book. When we recently put in a shed, the town sent someone out to inspect it. The inspector noticed our converted garage and wrote us a citation. Now they are saying we need to remove the improvements and turn it back into a garage. Do we ...Read more

Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Graffiti-tarnished towers in downtown LA remain in limbo

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

LOS ANGELES — Early last year, vandals breached fencing, climbed dozens of flights of stairs and painted bold, colorful graffiti on the exterior of three unfinished high-rises that make up the abandoned Oceanwide Plaza development.

The so-called Graffiti Towers — visible from great distances on the 110 Freeway and looming over thousands of ...Read more

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/TNS

A second act for empty office space? How skyscrapers in downtown LA could ease the housing crisis

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

LOS ANGELES — The transformation of a sleek, granite-clad office tower on the edge of the 110 Freeway into deluxe apartments is about to begin, and developer Garrett Lee thinks the nearly 40-year-old building can be competitive with downtown L.A.’s much newer upmarket housing.

A mock-up of an apartment assembled in the L.A. Care tower on ...Read more

Gary Arbach/Dreamstime.com/TNS

Four years after inflation first spiked, Americans' wages are still falling behind -- and a slower job market isn't helping

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Three years ago, when inflation was rising at the fastest pace in almost half a century, Lori Schkufza could still see the silver linings. She had a full-time job with benefits as a digital animator. Even though her expenses had grown, her income had increased, too.

Now, however, the 38-year-old Buffalo, New York, resident has been out of a job...Read more

Acnaleksy/Dreamstime/TNS

Tokenized stock trading: The huge risks in moving stocks to blockchain

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

The cryptocurrency industry has lately begun to heavily promote tokenized stocks, but what exactly are they? More importantly, what advantages do tokenized stocks offer — especially when investors already have safe, no-cost fractional share trading at many brokers?

A tokenized stock is a fancy way of saying that ownership of a stock can be ...Read more

DREAMSTIME/TNS

The 7 worst investment decisions beginners can make

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Making the decision to start investing is one of the best decisions you can make. Investing is an important step toward building wealth and achieving your financial goals. However, successful investing can be difficult and there are some key mistakes you’ll want to avoid.

Here are the top seven investment mistakes beginners make when they ...Read more

Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Will Los Angeles ever get enough housing? The future holds promise

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Over the last century, L.A.'s love affair with the single-family home has created a suburban sprawl of epic proportions.

Three bedrooms. A white-picket fence. A square of grass for the barbecue.

But for many, the dream of home ownership will never be realized. Home prices have soared, wages haven't kept pace, and more than half of L.A. ...Read more

Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/TNS

Miami adds incentives for high-rises up to 1 mile from rail stations

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

A new zoning program in the city of Miami will allow for denser developments in a radius of up to a mile around existing and planned Metrorail and commuter rail stations, including Brightline stations, inside city boundaries.

Within those zones, developers can apply to build high-rise residential and commercial projects with considerably more ...Read more

Real estate Q&A: How can we stop complaining neighbor's harassing behavior?

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Q: I’m seeking advice regarding a neighbor who has repeatedly filed unfounded complaints to city authorities about several properties in our neighborhood, including ours. Although most complaints were unfounded, we still had to contend with the stress and inconvenience of dealing with code enforcement. We believe this behavior has escalated ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Inflation stayed steady last month as Trump's tariffs hit some prices -- here's what might feel most expensive

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Inflation didn’t improve last month, suggesting that businesses may be starting to pass along higher costs from tariffs onto the prices that you see on store shelves.

Consumer prices rose 0.2% between June and July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)’ latest monthly consumer price index (CPI) report. Excluding food and energy...Read more

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/TNS

Stagflation concerns ripple through Wall Street as tariffs hit

Consumer / Home and Consumer News /

Wall Street strategists are sounding alarms that the U.S. economy is drifting toward stagflation as the impact of trade tariffs start to show up, potentially restricting the ability of the Federal Reserve to slash interest-rates.

While investors have so far largely shrugged off the warning signs, data is suggesting an approaching period of ...Read more