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Mortgage rates continued to shoot up, with the average rate offered for a 30-year fixed rate home loan leaping in a single day to 5.41% from 5.22% to a fresh high since at least 2019, according to lender data provided to The Balance. On March 7, the average rate was 4.32%—more than an entire percentage point lower. (Our daily mortgage rate data only goes back to April 2021, but our data on yearly highs and lows dates back to 2020, so we know rates hadn’t been higher in 2020....

What Is a Short Sale? Short sales happen when a lender agrees to accept a home sales price that is less than the balance of the mortgage. It might look like the sales price is high enough to cover the mortgage, but if it fails to sell for enough to cover the mortgage plus the fees for selling the home, it falls into short sale territory. In some cases, the seller may have two home loans that need to be paid off....

In many cases, credit cards are a safer choice. Most credit cards come with zero fraud liability, which means you won’t be held liable for unauthorized charges to your account as long as you report the charges within a certain timeframe. Debit cards don’t come with the same protection; if you wait too long to report the fraud, you could be on the hook for everything stolen from your account....

Waiting Too Long to Apply If you haven’t already started your internship search, what are you waiting for? High school students, college students, and recent grads are all constantly looking and applying for internships, so get started today. If you are applying for fall internships, start sending in materials around June or July. If you are applying for a spring internship, you should be looking in October or November. And if you want a summer internship, you should start looking in October of the year prior (just to make sure the company you are interested in doesn’t have super early deadlines)....

These steps could also be learned and applied by individuals for their own benefit if they wanted to act as their own nonprofessional financial planner. What Are the 7 Steps of Financial Planning? The seven steps of financial planning start with getting to know the client’s current financial situation and goals and end with continually measuring performance toward those goals and updating them as necessary. Step 1: Understanding the Client’s Personal and Financial Circumstances The CFP begins their financial planning process by asking their clients questions designed to help them get a clear picture of who the client is and what they want....

1. Use Goal-Setting to Push Boundaries Goal setting can be a great way to clarify your focus, measure progress and track achievements. And for the most successful among us, goals also present an opportunity to push the lines of your comfort zone and take calculated risks. Creating a plan for this growth in the form of long- and short-term goals, a business plan, or even single targeted tasks can help your business reach new levels of success....

Once you know where to look, you also can apply some basic methods for finding missing money and getting that money back. Below, we’ll share eight places you can look. If you haven’t filed a tax return for a prior year, and you have a refund coming to you, the IRS does not penalize you for filing late. If you believe you’re owed a refund, but you have not received it, you can use the IRS Where’s My Refund site....

Follow the Rules Sure, on television or in the movies, it’s always the rogue cop or the office worker who pushes the limits who wins the rewards and praise. In real life, it’s the person who does what they are supposed to do. This is especially important if you’re the boss or work in a management role. The boss who slacks off from working hard in the office, comes in late, leaves early, and spends more time shopping online than working, won’t engender respect from the coworkers....

Control Over Your Schedule Being in charge of your day is one of the biggest benefits of working from home. You can set and customize your work hours to meet the needs of your life. Do you wish you could take a power nap in the middle of the day? You can as a home business owner. Do you do your best work late at night? You can schedule your work time then....

When you choose your new bank, you will want to consider many different options. The biggest should be the fees and interest that is involved with the bank. You may also consider convenience and how easy it is to visit your bank. You should make sure your bank is insured by the FDIC, which will protect your funds if there are any issues. Generally, you can just change the information with your Human Resources department....

However, all 50 states have different laws regarding how wills are validated and interpreted. Most states recognize wills executed in other states, but some don’t. For this reason, it is essential to ensure that your last will is valid in the states you might be considering moving to. You might need to change or update your will if you’re thinking about relocating. Here are some factors that can affect a will’s validity and interpretation according to state laws....

REITs include a wide range of properties which include, but are not limited to, shopping malls, hotels, manufacturing facilities, and student housing on major college campuses. They typically hire the best management teams. The team’s job is to manage the properties to maximize rental income and profits. Equity REITs are not taxed at the corporate level. Property Management Without Headaches REITs allow the average investor to own commercial real estate....

However, it is important to note that agreed value coverage will protect you from a coinsurance penalty only if you have fulfilled certain requirements. Understanding the Agreed Value Option As its name suggests, agreed value is a property value that you and your insurer agree upon at the beginning of your policy period. To obtain coverage based on an agreed value, you must submit a statement of values to your insurer before your policy begins or renews....

Home Insurance Condo Insurance Renters Insurance Landlord Insurance Life Insurance Car Insurance Rideshare Insurance Umbrella Insurance Business Insurance How Stable and Reliable Is Allstate? Based on their long history, Allstate has the ability to change with the demands of the modern consumer and offer products to meet modern needs. Below we cover many areas where Allstate is reviewed for financial stability and strength, as well as customer satisfaction and diversity in product offerings....

Learn more about analytical skills and how they work. What Are Analytical Skills? Employers look for employees with the ability to investigate a problem and find the ideal solution in a timely, efficient manner. The skills required to solve problems are known as analytical skills. You use analytical skills when detecting patterns, brainstorming, observing, interpreting data, integrating new information, theorizing, and making decisions based on the multiple factors and options available....

To make effective decisions that will grow your business and use your resources wisely, you will need to put some of those resources toward conducting market and marketing research. Market Research vs. Marketing Research Market research involves identifying a specific “target,” and focusing exclusively on that group. It is research into a narrow group of consumers to understand their behavior and motivation. Marketing research has a broader scope that market research....

At both fast-food and sit-down restaurants, entry-level workers are in such high demand that their wages have been outpacing increases in the prices restaurants are charging their customers, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The chart below shows how wages at restaurants have spiked, while prices for meals have increased steadily over time—but not as quickly nor in tandem with pay. Across much of the economy, prices have been going up so fast, they’ve effectively wiped out the pay raises workers have been getting....

Whether you’re in your 20s or in your 40s, saving for both retirement and a crisis like job loss should be a top priority. Having benchmarks for tracking your progress as you save can be helpful and important. Retirement vs. Emergency—Which Comes First? Experts advise that you should put away at least three months’ worth of living expenses before you begin saving for retirement. Six months’ worth is even better....

What are Behavioral Interview Questions? The logic behind this interview tactic is that your behavior in the past reflects and predicts how you will behave in the future. But remember the interviewer isn’t necessarily asking “yes or no” questions, and so it may help to review how to answer interview questions without a right (or wrong) answer. Respond to these sort of questions with specific examples of how you have previously handled similar situations in the workplace....

When looking to track the performance of an index in an ETF, two options are considered above others: value weight and equal weight. Value-weighted ETFs (sometimes known as cap-weighted) buy shares in businesses in proportion to those companies’ overall value. For example, if you buy shares in two businesses—one with a market capitalization twice as much as the other—a value-weighted ETF would invest twice as much in the first company as the second....