Business Eden Blog

Be Responsible for Your Money Problems

Do you experience money problems? Perhaps a bad credit score, a low income, or devastating debt payments to make each month? It’s easy and very tempting to blame the government, credit card companies, or possibly even your parents for your problems. However, many people are unable – or proudly refuse – to ponder on the role they play in creating their own financial problems.

Below we give a few examples of when your money problems are mostly your own fault:

• You took out tens of thousands of dollars of student loans because you wanted to get a degree that you should have known would give you a low salary.
• You racked up credit card debt because you travelled, bought clothes, ate out, and purchased other unnecessary things just because “you deserve it.”
• You don’t know what a budget is. You signed up for all your fixed expenses (rent, mortgage, loan agreements, cable, etc) without even considering how much of your take home pay would be leftover after making those payments. That’s why you can barely afford food and gas after paying your bills.
• You were unable to get a proper insurance and then got crushed with unexpected medical or car bills.
• You have never examined your credit report and, as a result, you’re unaware of past due bills, errors, or other issues that have impeded your score. Now you can’t get good rates on loans. What is worse, you’re ignoring the rates you’re paying and you don’t know if they are reasonable.
• You took a debt that no one with your salary could ever cope with, and now you are unable pay it back. Collections, foreclosures, and/or bankruptcies have devastated your credit. Now you won’t get a loan and you may even be denied housing and certain jobs.

Manhattan’s immunity to real estate crisis?

Is the real estate market in Manhattan still flourishing?

The real estate recession has been continuously spreading since the credit crunch started 8 months ago, reducing considerably prices in small towns, suburbs, and cities such as Seattle and San Francisco that have so far been resilient to the crisis. It would seem that New York is the last big city where real estate is flourishing.
Between January and March 2008, the average price for a Manhattan home increased by 18%, up to $872,000, compared with the same period last year. The average price for all of New York City, which encompasses also weaker middle-class neighborhoods in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, increased by 4% in the first quarter, to $535,000, according to the report by the  real estate industry group.

What is driving the prices up in NYC?

New York’s real estate boom was developed by means of a slew of newly completed and startlingly expensive condos.
For example, Sting paid $26.5 million for a condo in the newly-built 43-story building at 15 Central Park West. Sanford Weill, the former chairman of Citigroup, bought an apartment in the same building for more than $42 million for an apartment in the same building.

How much does an expensive condo in Manhattan cost?

According to a survey by Businessweek.com the highest asking prices in Manhattan now vary between $36.5 million and $75 million.

What are the prices of the lower end apartments?

The market is also busy on its lower end, which in case of Manhattan generally starts at approximately $400,000 for a studio. (People in New York are used to living with less space.)

Are there any other cities where real estate market is booming?

Manhattan isn’t America’s only developing market. Bright spots in the real estate market are also present in Austin, Tex., and Charlotte, N.C. Additionally, increasing oil prices have kept Houston’s market afloat. Nevertheless, the nation’s major cities have generally shown market decline.