Timing's everything in refinancing home

Of the hundreds of signs on Germantown Parkway in Cordova, one has been getting the attention of some residents in the predominantly middle-class area more than others.

And it's not just because of the word "TitleMax" in glowing white neon. The payday and car title loan company opened over the summer at 1120 Germantown Parkway, front and center on one of the most thriving commercial strips in town.

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It�s about time Congress started worrying more about the country ...

One common assumption about the subprime mortgage crisis is that it revolves around borrowers with sketchy credit who couldn't have bought a home without paying punitively high interest rates. But it turns out that plenty of people with seemingly good credit are also caught in the subprime trap.

An analysis for The Wall Street Journal of more than $2.5 trillion in subprime loans made since 2000 shows that as the number of subprime loans mushroomed, an increasing proportion of them went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms.

In 2005, the peak year of the subprime boom, the study says that borrowers with such credit scores got more than half -- 55% -- of all subprime mortgages that were ultimately packaged into securities for sale to investors, as most subprime loans are. read more