Putting in a new bathroom can add value to your home, but even if you’re not planning to sell your home a nice bathroom can be a great room for you to unwind and relax in.If you’re planning to install a new bathroom, it’s going to be easier to leave the plumbing where it is, rather than trying to move your toilet from one side of the room to another. Size is another factor; if you have a small bathroom there are ways to work around it, such as installing a corner bath, or a small sink and toilet.

You’ll also need to make sure the water pressure can deal with your chosen settings. Also to consider is storage. Again, this will depend on how much space you have to spare. If space is minimal, you can fit wall cabinets above the sink as a place to store toiletries or fit a sink built in with a cupboard below where towels can be stored.Lighting is another aspect to think about. Spotlights look good in bathrooms. Also popular is lighting which can be dimmed to set the mood in the room.

This is a technique many people will be familiar with from their living room design, with mood lighting used to highlight leather sofas and other items of living or dining room furniture.Or, if you really want to make a statement, consider installing a wet room or walk in shower, where shower jets can hit you from all sides. Make sure, however, that you hire a professional to do the job if you’re not 100% sure you know what you’re doing. You’ll need to make sure your room is watertight or it may do damage to other parts of your house.

Other materials to consider using here could be tiling, glass walls and heated flooring. They all cost money but it’s widely recognised that kitchens and bathrooms effectively sell houses…

What will happen when the next shock hits? We believe we may be nearing the stage where the answer will be – just as it was in the Great Depression – a calamitous global collapse. The root problem is that we have let a ‘doomsday cycle’ infiltrate our economic system. This is a quote from very interesting article, titled ‘The doomsday cycle’ by Peter Boone and Simon Johnson.
“So where are we going with our current reforms? It is now obvious that risk taking at banks will soon be larger than ever. Central banks and governments around the world have proved (once again) that they are willing to bailout banks at enormous public cost when things go wrong. Markets are now again providing very cheap loans to banks, with the comfort that the state will bail them out.

Today, Bank of America and the Royal Bank of Scotland are each priced to have just 0.5% annual risk of default above their sovereigns during the next five years in credit markets. This is a remarkably low implied risk considering that both banks were near to collapse just a few months ago. Creditors are clearly very confident that they will be bailed out again if necessary. Indeed, they are more comfortable lending to large risky banks than to many successful corporations.

There is no doubt that the regulatory environment is going to be tougher for the next few years. But nothing has changed to make us believe the regulatory system will succeed this time, when it has failed so enormously – and repeatedly – in the recent past. To bring about the dramatic change that is needed also requires international cooperation and consistency. We doubt such change is truly on the table as so few policy-makers seem to demand it.

Many of our current policymakers – Ben Bernanke, Mervyn King, Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown – are the same ones that inflated the last bubble. So we know with great confidence that they are the types that will bail us out each time things go wrong. They are all currently on course for seeding our next rise and collapse. Cheap rates and credit, with large moral hazard, are the initial stages of each cycle. Very few of these people, apart from Mervyn King, appear prepared to recognise their past role in creating our current problems and then to discuss resolutely how to change it.

The danger this system poses is clear, as Figure 1 shows. With our financial system now well oiled to take on very large risk once again, and to gamble excessively, can we be sure that we can continue this cycle of bailing out eventual failures? At what point will the costs be so large that both fiscal and monetary policies are simply incapable of stopping the collapse?

Last year, we came remarkably close to collapse. Next time, it may be worse. The threat of the doomsday cycle remains strong and growing.”

Youcan read complete text here – http://voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/4659

The market of the inhabited real estate in the USA remains in an uncertain situation at least till the end of 2009, and the prices for habitation in the country will continue to fall.
In the end of April, 2009 the quantity of the apartment houses exposed on sale in the USA, has made in total 3,97 million units.

– After a recent spike seen in mortgage rates, some consumers are wondering whether they’ve missed their chance to refinance into an ultra-low rate.
Fear not: While the conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit a daily average of 5.81% last Thursday, it averaged 5.53% on Tuesday, said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH Associates, a publisher of consumer loan information. And it’s possible that rates could continue to fall.

Predicting interest rates is like predicting who is going to win the W World Series in January,” said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. That said, he calls the recent spike “somewhat of an aberration,” and expects rates will continue to drift down. Why the recent run-up in rates? Over the past month or two, “the economic skies have brightened somewhat,”
But now, rates are retreating partly because inflation doesn’t seem as immediate a threat as investors feared, Cecala said. In his opinion, nothing fundamentally has changed in the economy over recent weeks to warrant the rate rise, yet he expects volatility through the remainder of the year as investors debate the economy’s health.

“Realistically, I think that the rates will drift under 5% again. It may take a month, may take two months,” he said .

It’s also important, however, to realize that extremely low rates likely won’t be around forever, said Bob Walters, chief economist of Quicken Loans, in a statement.

“Luckily, we have seen rates drop some this week, which should help many consumers breathe a little easier,” Walters said. “But the fact remains, the government’s plan of purchasing mortgage-backed securities cannot go on indefinitely, and when it ends, we will most certainly see a spike in rates. The hope is that the Fed can keep rates low long enough to kick-start a housing recovery. Whether that will work remains to be seen.”

“Volatility is the key word in the mortgage industry these days when it comes to rates,” said Kyle Kerwin, senior vice president of mortgage lending for Signature Bank of Arkansas.
Here are five tips for those shopping for a mortgage today, particularly those who need to refinance an existing loan:

1. Get started on paperwork. Once you’ve found the mortgage professional you’d like to work with, get started on the necessary paperwork, said Dan Green, loan officer with Waterstone Mortgage in Cincinnati and author of TheMortgageReports.com. Rates move regularly, and if paperwork has been started your file can be processed more quickly when rates hit a low. When you start the application process, your credit score will be pulled and you’ll need to submit support documentation including W-2 forms and pay stubs. You might be asked for updated documents nearer to closing.

2. Make sure your credit is in good shape. Check credit reports and fix problems as soon as possible, said Mary Curran, president of Highland Financial Mortgage Corp. in Northbrook, Ill. Even seemingly small charges can haunt a borrower: A forgotten, unpaid parking ticket, for example, can noticeably affect a credit score, she said.

3. Decide at what rate it makes sense to pull the trigger. If you have a 6% rate now, rates would have to hit 5% or lower for it to make financial sense to refinance, Cecala said. Talk with your mortgage professional about what’s best for your particular situation.

4. Stick to your guns. Once you determine the rate you’d need to get, it’s probably wise to stick to that decision. Consumers sometimes gamble that rates will go lower, and the plan can backfire if rates reverse course, Kerwin said. A couple of weeks ago, rates were close to 4.5% in his market, “and people wanted to hold out for an extra eighth of a percent.”

5. Remember, rates are still good. Yes, rates could fall and create another record low as a result of a swoon in the stock market, a collapse of a major bank or a deepening of a recession, Gumbinger said. But it isn’t likely that many consumers would crave those economic shocks. “Why would anyone wish for those things again to simply get a rock-bottom, ultra low mortgage rate? If it means saving $250 per month on your mortgage but it costs you $50,000 in your 401(k), how could this be seen as any kind of benefit?” he said.

Amy Hoak is a MarketWatch reporter based in Chicago

Australian households have a better grip on their mortgage repayments than in recent times, according to the monthly Mortgage Stress-O-Meter released by Fujitsu Consulting.

The May results show mortgage stress amongst Australian households has fallen by 3 per cent over the past month.

The fall in households suffering mortgage stress has been directly attributed to a combination of lower interest rates and Government stimulus handouts.

The report shows nearly one in three suburban families is making more than the minimum required monthly home loan repayment, placing these homeowners in a good position to weather any future financial turbulence.

40 per cent of households were also considering their fixed home loan rate options, with many believing now may be the time to consider locking in a fully or partially fixed home loan rate.

Homeowners should be wary of rising unemployment however and put in place some strategies for dealing with home loan repayments should someone in the household find themselves temporarily out of work.

According to a new study homeowners owing more on a mortgage than their homes are worth, prices has left about 20% of U.S, Wall Street Journal reports. It means 20% of homeowners are ‘underwater’ and till now there is no ways to stabilize the housing market.

Experts of real estate Web site Zillow.com reported that 21.8% of all U.S. homes, representing more than 20 million residences, were in a “negative equity” or “underwater” position after prices dropped more than 14% nationally in the year ended March 31.

All analysis is based on the mortgage balance at the time of purchase and the price changes that have occurred since. It does not take into account that some homeowners may have paid down principal along the way.

Also it may look like a conservative approach because the trend has been for people to strip value from their homes in the form of home equity loans and lines of credit, than to add value by paying down their mortgages.

In October 2008 Paul Krugman, a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University believed that increased public spending — akin to the efforts of the New Deal during the Great Depression — is the best way to escape the financial crisis and regain American global leadership, npr.org. reported.

“It’s politically fashionable to rant against government spending and demand fiscal responsibility. But right now, increased government spending is just what the doctor ordered, and concerns about the budget deficit should be put on hold.”

Ehat’s tiday? What’s the matter with Europe now? Many countries in Western Europe have weak financial sectors with high systemic risk. We know about the collapse in Iceland and no doubt thsi is not an isolated incident, but rather a harbinger of things to come for smaller countries with large financial sectors such as Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland and even the United Kingdom are waiting now their turn.

The worst economic turmoil since the Great Depression is not a natural phenomenon today Guardian totes, but a man-made disaster in which we all played a part. In the second part of a week-long series looking behind the slump, Guardian City editor Julia Finch picks out the individuals who have led us into the current crisis

So, who are those who led us down the Road to Ruin?

Alan Greenspan, chairman of US Federal Reserve 1987- 2006
Bill Clinton, former US president
Gordon Brown, prime minister
George W Bush, former US president
Senator Phil Gramm
Abi Cohen, Goldman Sachs chief US strategist
“Hank” Greenberg, AIG insurance group
Andy Hornby, former HBOS boss
Sir Fred Goodwin, former RBS boss
Steve Crawshaw, former B&B boss
Adam Applegarth, former Northern Rock boss
Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin
Lewis Ranieri
Joseph Cassano, AIG Financial Products
Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide Financial
Stan O’Neal, former boss of Merrill Lynch
Jimmy Cayne, former Bear Stearns boss
Christopher Dodd, chairman, Senate banking committee (Democrat)
Geir Haarde, Icelandic prime minister and others.