Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
San Diego County is preparing to auction 600-plus tax-defaulted properties in March 2026, with opening bids on many parcels listed below $100,000 on the county’s auction map. The sale is scheduled to run from March 13 through March 18, according to the county portal, and arrives as Southern California housing costs continue to strain household…
Federal data through November 2025 shows U.S. home prices cooling sharply in several regions, with the Pacific division posting an outright annual decline. For buyers who entered the market during the high-rate environment of 2024, that drop threatens to erase equity faster than monthly payments can build it, leaving some households owing more than their…
Chicago’s downtown office market closed 2025 with a vacancy rate of 26.6%, a figure that reflects not just empty floors but a widening fiscal crisis for the city’s homeowners. As commercial property values crater across the Loop, Cook County has begun resetting assessments on hundreds of buildings, and the resulting tax burden is shifting squarely…
Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bipartisan package of bills reforming California’s insurer of last resort on October 9, 2025, the latest in a string of state actions aimed at reversing a home insurance crisis that has left hundreds of thousands of homeowners dependent on a strained backup plan or no coverage at all. The reforms…
Four small American towns are drawing fresh attention from budget-conscious remote workers who want reliable internet, low housing costs, and enough local character to make a move worthwhile. Lafayette, Louisiana; Pella, Iowa; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Fairlawn, Ohio each combine affordable rents with the kind of broadband infrastructure that larger cities take for granted. As popular…
Texas homeowners in fast-growing suburban counties are absorbing some of the steepest property tax bills in the state, driven by overlapping local taxing units that collectively set rates without any state-level property tax to offset the burden. Because Texas relies entirely on local governments to fund schools, cities, counties, and special districts through property levies,…
U.S. home sales fell sharply in early 2026 as elevated mortgage rates and steep prices pushed buyers to the sidelines. Existing-home sales dropped 8.4% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.91 million units, hitting the lowest level in more than two years. New-home sales also edged lower at the end of 2025,…
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes dropped sharply in January, recording the largest monthly decline in nearly four years even as mortgage rates edged lower. The data, released by the National Association of Realtors, signals that cheaper borrowing costs alone have not been enough to thaw a housing market that has been sluggish since 2022….
Lakeland, Florida, a mid-sized city positioned along the Interstate 4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando, has claimed the top spot on a national ranking of America’s fastest-growing boomtowns. The city’s population surged 34.39% between 2014 and 2024, and its 2025 move in-to-out ratio of 1.33 means roughly four people arrive for every three who leave….
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has ignited a fierce backlash from New York City’s real estate industry by proposing a 9.5% property tax rate increase as part of his Fiscal Year 2027 preliminary budget, a move he frames as a fallback if Albany refuses to pass a state wealth tax on millionaires. The proposal would push the…
Retirement Shield
The money news that hits your wallet
The free Retirement Shield newsletter covers the benefits, tax, and cost-of-living changes that affect what you keep, a couple of times a week.