Now open: Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center announced today the opening of its new children’s emergency room and expansion of its adult emergency room. The number of available beds in the children’s emergency room has increased to 20 from 14, and nurses’ stations have risen to three from one to offer more monitoring capabilities. Fourteen additional patient beds have been added in the adult emergency room to bring the total of available beds to 59. Five new exam rooms and 14 minor care treatment spaces have been added, and two critical care rooms have been refurbished and enlarged.
Bringing it all back home: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Monday detailed plans to once again back mortgages with down payments as low as 3%. The housing finance giants say the move to make ownership of a home more accessible contains safeguards to protect against abuses that led to the subprime housing market crash. As The Los Angeles Times reports, the eligible loans would be fixed-rate mortgages on single-family homes that would be the primary residence of borrowers. The loans also would require full documentation of the ability to repay the mortgage, said officials from the two firms and their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Read the full story. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-mortgage-downpayment-20141208-story.html
Catch 22: It’s the new career trade-off: Around the country, areas with the strongest job markets increasingly have some of the costliest homes. And areas with the most affordable homes lack a solid base of middle-class jobs that attract workers. As The Associated Press reports, independent studies and government data show the dream of homeownership is proving frustrating for many. It often is deferred or abandoned, even for people with comfortable incomes. “This great mismatch is hurting middle-class people who would like to be homeowners,” says Nela Richardson, chief economist at the real estate brokerage Redfin. Read the full story.
