In a rare Saturday session, the Alabama Legislature passed budgets and the Montgomery tax referendum. The property tax referendum passed the Senate floor with an amendment, and was concurred by the House of Representatives. The ad valorem tax proposal would add 12 mills to the current 10 mill property tax rate in Montgomery County. All of the money would go…
Americans retreated from purchasing homes in December, as the number of properties listed for sale sank to its lowest level since 1999. The National Association of Realtors says that sales of existing homes fell 2.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.49 million. For all of 2016, sales posted an annual gain of 3.8 percent to…
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae posted net income of $1.1 billion for the first quarter, down from a year ago as declining interest rates reduced the value of the financial instruments it uses to hedge against rate swings. The results announced Thursday for the January-through-March period marked the 17th straight profitable quarter for the government-controlled company. The first-quarter profit compared with…
