First Arkansas News

The numbers are in and homes sales in February were up compared to the same month a year ago in three of the four largest housing markets in Arkansas. According to the February housing market report released by The City Wire in Fort Smith, the combined number of homes sales in central Arkansas, the Fort Smith area, the Jonesboro area and northwest Arkansas totaled 1,169 in February — up 12.4 percent from 1,040 sales in the same month a year ago. The average sales price in February for those...

Many people pinch their pennies by doing things such as using coupons and not leaving their water running for very long. But one thing that can save you a lot of money is improving your credit. Better credit means a better credit score, and a better credit score means better interest rates on your credit cards, home and car loans, which can save you literally thousands of dollars. The majority of your credit score – 65 percent, in fact – is based on your payment history and how much debt you...

It’s a tale we’ve heard far too many times – a home owner gets sick or loses a job, falls behind on his mortgage payments and is looking at the very real prospect of losing a home through foreclosure. When a home is foreclosed upon, no one involved in the process wins. The home owner loses the house he or she had planned on staying in for years and will have to deal with a bad credit score for a few years. The lender always loses money when a home is taken through foreclosure as it is very...

If your home was tangled up in the foreclosure process in 2010 or 2011, you may be entitled to an independent review which will determine if you are entitled to compensation. The clock is ticking on that process, however – people wanting a review must request one by the end of July. In essence, the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve investigated 14 major mortgage servicers accused of engaging in...

Buried amongst all the talk of the new Apple iPad this week was news of the release of iOS 5.1. What is significant about the new Apple operating system? Owners of the iPhone 4S who are AT&T customers and downloaded the update may have noticed the “3G” icon on their phones had been replaced with a “4G” icon. That’s right — the new update sure appears to turn the iPhone 4S into one that’s cruising the ultra-fast, next generation 4G data network. There are a couple of questions surrounding the...

For one day last week, I had the opportunity to be a college student again. On Tuesday, I went to the campus of John Brown University (JBU) in Siloam Springs to attend chapel. Why? Well, last week was leadership week at JBU, and they invited Phil Vischer, the creator of Veggie Tales and Big Idea Productions, to come and speak to the students. If you know me well, you know I’m a big fan of Veggie Tales – have been from the beginning when a tomato named Bob and a cucumber named Larry hit the...

The estate of Minnie Valentine — a woman who died after allegedly receiving inadequate care at a Little Rock nursing home in 2004 — won a $10 million verdict in a negligence suit filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court against the nursing home, entities involved in running it and the head of the facility. In a Feb. 23 Arkansas Supreme Court decision, Donald B. Bedell was dismissed from the case on appeal. Bedell was either president or a member of the board of directors for Arkansas Health Care...

Back in April, First Arkansas News posted an article about a great Mexican food cart in Benton called El Taco Loco. Things have changed a bit. Since the first of the year, the name of the establishment has changed to the very Anglicized The Crazy Taco, the cart is smaller, the menu is similar and the management has reverted back to Louis Romero who started the company in the first place. Confused? Don’t be. Romero started his business with a hot dog cart in Haskell two years ago. At the time,...

Bryant aldermen Adrian Henley, Brenda Miller and Danny Steele filed suit in Saline County Circuit Court yesterday alleging that “unknown persons” had posted defamatory comments against them on MySaline.com. The complaint against the unknown persons alleges that the comments posted on the online forum are false, defamatory and rise to the level of cyberbullying as they are threatening, abusive, alarming, etc. The lawsuit identifies the defendants only by their MySaline.com user names and...

The City Wire in Fort Smith has released its inaugural Arkansas Homes Sales Report today, showing that real estate markets were down in the four largest areas of the state in January. The report covers 14 counties in Arkansas, but those are the most populous ones and around 70 to 75 percent of home sales take place in those counties.The report will be released monthly by The City Wire and will contain in-depth commentary from economists and Arkansas Realtors dealing with markets on a...

On Feb. 2, the largest board of Realtors in Arkansas was created when members of the Metro Area Board of Realtors approved an agreement to merge the three real estate associations covering Benton and Washington counties. The merger resulted in the formation of the Northwest Arkansas Board of Realtors, a group with around 1,500 members. The boards that agreed to merge are the Bentonville-Bella Vista Board of Realtors, Fayetteville-based Metro Area Board of Realtors and the Rogers Board of...

Siloam Springs Attorney David A. Bailey may have worried about being a bit rusty when he got back into the full time business of practicing law in July, but he needn’t have worried. Indeed, the Herald-Leader in Siloam Springs informed Bailey this week that his office was named “Best Law Firm” in that newspaper’s 2012 Reader’s Choice awards. “I’m honored and feel privileged,” Bailey said of the award. “I praise God for it. I wanted to win eventually, but I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to...

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions of Canada (OSFI) has raised concerns over lending practices similar to those that gave rise to the crash of the subprime mortgage market in the United States. According to documents obtained by Bloomberg News, OFSI officials are concerned about increasingly lenders’ increasing liberal practices when it comes to writing mortgages and home equity credit lines. Those practices include not requiring proof of income for those big-ticket...

Bailey It’s hard to deny that Facebook and the other social networking sites have had a profound impact on the world. The ability to keep up with old high school friends and relatives who live far away is merely part of the allure of social networking. Many businesses are actively marketing their products and services via Facebook and the like. Some have even predicted that yellow page advertising will one day be a thing of the past. As with other forms of technology, the benefits of social...

Since the subprime lending market collapsed around 2007, mortgage reform has been a popular topic in the federal government. When it comes down to it, the real estate industry in general has become an issue of much discussion in Washington, D.C. The high number of foreclosures has been a concern and the same goes for falling home prices. Furthermore, there has been an emphasis on risk – the notion that lenders ought to write mortgages for people who are likely to live up to the obligations...