Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
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…
Collector car prices have fallen sharply from their pandemic-era highs, and bargain hunters are moving fast. The Hagerty Market Rating, a widely tracked measure of the classic car market’s health, slid to 67.23 on its 0-to-100 scale, roughly 11 points below its June 2022 peak. At the same time, January 2025 auction results show average…
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…
Homes priced at $1 million or more are becoming more common across the U.S. housing market, no longer confined to a few coastal enclaves. Sustained price appreciation across dozens of metropolitan areas has steadily pushed properties past the seven-figure threshold, a shift driven less by new luxury construction than by broad, compounding gains in existing…
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage in the United States fell to 6.01% as of February 19, 2026, hitting its lowest point in more than three years. The drop, recorded in Freddie Mac’s weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey, has reignited debate over whether buyers who sat on the sidelines during the rate spike…
Dave Ramsey, the personal finance commentator known for his aggressive anti-debt philosophy, has been urging would-be buyers to focus less on headline mortgage-rate moves and more on affordability and personal financial readiness. The average U.S. long-term mortgage rate recently dipped to 6.01%, its lowest level in more than three years according to Freddie Mac data….
A California homeowner staring at a $44,000 insurance bill and quotes reaching $80,000 a year has become the sharpest illustration yet of a home-insurance market in free fall. The state’s insurer of last resort, the FAIR Plan, faces a $1 billion funding shortfall after the 2025 Southern California wildfires, and the mechanism designed to close…
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,…
Surging home values have turned the family house into the single largest asset most parents will ever pass on. Between 2019 and 2022, median home equity jumped $47,900 across U.S. households, according to Census Bureau data drawn from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. That windfall makes the decision to leave a home to…
A convergence of expiring federal tax credits, a rising tide of off-lease electric vehicles, and aggressive manufacturer discounting is setting up early 2026 as a buyer’s market for luxury SUVs. Several high-end models that held their value through the pandemic-era supply crunch now face steep depreciation as supply outpaces demand. For shoppers willing to wait,…