“Experts” and pundits with an agenda to support the industry over-complicate the issue, but I would like to make a simple point here, and you can do with it what you will. Let’s take Las Vegas as an example. There was a construction boom underway during the height of the loose lending. Say you were an electrician there. You buy a house based on your ability to pay the mortgage in light of your current earnings. The “system,” as it were, created the bubble that fueled your income. That bubble bursts. Your work dries up. You are the same person with the same skills and work ethic that you had when all was well; you were simply laid off and you find yourself unable to pay your mortgage.

Let’s say you put down $20,000 and paid $2000 a month for three years prior to being paid off. That would be $92,000 that you paid the bank. This bank that you owe took your down payment and subsequent monthly payments, bundled them with those of others, and bet that money in the markets. They lost it all. This caused the situation that cost you your job. They are actually much more insolvent that you are, but they foreclose on you while the government bails them out (so in essence, the government is the bank now–socialism) with free money created out of thin air. So they own the house and you are out $92,000 and you are living with your wife and kids in your parents’ basement in Peoria. Astonishingly, via the practice of fractional reserve banking, the bank never actually had the money that they lent you in the first place.

Meanwhile, our kids are overseas fighting to keep this arrangement in place. Do you see something wrong with this picture

It is a simple strategy, but over the course of your lifetime, if you never paid any interest, you would find yourself with an unbelievable abundance. Imagine that. We don’t have that type of lifetime accumulation of wealth that our forefathers intended because of the manipulative practices of the central banking cartel.

If you buy a $250,000 house with a thirty year mortgage at 6.75%, you will wind up paying about double that, and this doesn’t include the fees, points, and sales commissions at point of purchase. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer not to pay double the value of the things that I purchase, especially when you recognize that going forward there is no guarantee that your home is going to continually rise in value. It is estimated that by the end of 2011 half of the home loans in America will be upside down.

The best course of action if you want to buy property is to live within your means, avoid paying interest on homes, cars, and credit cards, accrue some real buying power, and purchase your property outright. You can start with the land and build step by step as you can afford it if necessary. If we continue to feed the Fed when we really don’t have to, we deserve what we get in a way. They are offering us a horrible deal, and there is nothing compelling us to take them up on it.

When you invest some money into improving your home, you are increasing its value, so home improvements are indeed a good long term investment. But you are also improving your own quality of life on a day-to- day basis, and many home improvements can save you money on home maintenance and/or energy costs as well as adding to the value of your home. With those thoughts in mind, here are our top 5 home improvement projects for increasing the value of your home.

1.) Install Energy Efficient Windows

Due to the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, homeowners receive a 30% tax credit on the cost of having Energy Star qualified windows installed into their homes. This is a boon for homeowners who would like to invest in the value of their homes while saving money on energy costs immediately. You get brand new energy efficient windows at a 30% discount, your power bills go down, and the value of your house goes up when you choose to take advantage of this rare opportunity.

2.) Have Vinyl Siding Professionally Installed

Protecting the exterior of your house from the weather is one of the most important home improvement steps that you can take to maintain and increase the value of your home. Vinyl siding looks spectacular, and it requires virtually no maintenance, and that saves you money. You never have to paint the exterior of your house again when you have vinyl siding installed, and it never cracks or fades under the hot sun.

3.) Energy Star External Door Installation

Home improvements pay for themselves over time if and when you decide to sell your home, but the installation of energy efficient Energy Star doors puts money in your pocket right away due to lower energy costs. And because of the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, if you have Energy Star doors installed, you are entitled to a tax credit equal to 30% of the purchase price. Now is the time to improve your home and get some free money from Uncle Sam with Energy Star doors.

4.) Get Gutter Covers

We all love the lush green foliage during the warmer months, but that very same foliage can and does waft down from our shade trees and into our rain gutters. They can clog and back up a couple of times a year, and it is dangerous to try to climb up on the roof and clean the gutters yourself with less than professional equipment. When you have gutter covers installed, your gutters remain clear, there’s no need for unnecessary maintenance, and the value of your house goes up.

5.) Under Decking System Installation

Adding livable space to your property is one of the best ways to increase its value, and under-deck ceiling systems are a creative what to create additional square footage. You can add 10% of livable space for a play area the children will enjoy, a quiet reading area, or some additional waterproof storage space. An under decking system provides immediate enjoyment for the entire family while making your home more valuable.

There is a dark side to this strategy as well, and that is when an individual buys distressed property that is in some degree of disrepair and does the minimal amount of remodeling that is possible and then rents it. This can be done ethically, but many times people who go this route become pseudo slumlords who do not keep up the property, and this impacts the value of the homes in the neighborhood. If the hustlers identify a particular area as ripe for the picking, that neighborhood can be transformed into a transient nest of rentals in a matter of a couple of years. It’s not good for the homeowners in the area, and its really not good for the tenants who invariably have a hard time getting anything repaired, and the landlords inevitably raise the rent annually and the place winds up being occupied by different people each year.

There is honest profit to be made through buying some property, improving it, and selling it for more than you paid. But leaning on a bunch of rentals to make a buck is a questionable strategy at best.

So even though you had to pay interest, taxes, and insurance, and maintain and repair anything that went wrong, the typical rate of appreciation would offset these losses. In addition, as long as your mortgage payment was somewhere in the vicinity of what you would be paying for rent anyway, any inroads that you were making into the principal would be better than the nothing you get when you pay rent.

However, all of this is simply not true anymore. The prices of homes are going down, but it is hard to say that they have reached rock bottom, so there is no reason to expect that your home is going to appreciate in value. Ask yourself the question: if I buy a house right now, under what circumstances would it go up in value? The answer to this question is simply a matter of supply and demand. Do you think that people will be competing to buy this home you are considering in the coming years, and in turn ratchet up its value? If you do, then perhaps you should buy. But if you don’t, it may be best to continue renting until and unless you feel confident that people will be trying to outbid one another for your property should you decide to sell it.

In the city where I live, one has to pay for water and trash collection and recycling services to the same governmental entity. You get one bill coming from the same office for the combination of these services. Now believe it or not, there is a “customer service fee” of $6.82 for the water portion of the bill. What is that exactly? Isn’t the cost of doing business figured into the water charges? And it doesn’t stop there. You are also charged another “customer service fee” each month in that same amount, $6.82, for the trash portion of the services. Clearly this is a total rip-off, so much so that it is almost funny. But they have a monopoly–the only way I am getting water is through the city, and it’s the only trash removal and recycling option as well.

This kind of thing is just part of the appeal of living off the grid. Imagine getting water and power for free once you get yourself set up with solar and or wind power and dig a well or build a rain catcher or cistern system. No more bills, no more wasted money on fees and taxes, and no governmental control of your essential services. It may take some work and getting used to at first, but that independence would be well worth it. Buying some off the grid real estate and becoming self sufficient is definitely something that everyone should consider very seriously if it is at all possible given your financial circumstances. When you think about retirement income, imagine all of the money you spend on utilities winding up in your pocket instead…that is a significant sum that can really improve your financial security while increasing your spending power. It’s also a totally legal way to reduce governmental intrusions into your life.

Employers don’t look at these numbers. Their goal is to pay workers as little as they can, and due to the ubiquity of corporate outsourcing, the competition includes non-American workers who can get by on a small fraction of what it costs to live here in the United States. So if the “American Dream” is founded on home ownership, a very small percentage of people these days are in a financial position to live that dream. Not many available jobs are paying $54,000, and while it is true that a couple may be able to pool their resources to qualify, this still stretches them very thin, and should one of them lose their job, they will find themselves being foreclosed upon in a matter of a few months.

You won’t read it in the mainstream media, but the strangulation of what used to be the middle class by the globally owned corporations is what has evaporated the American Dream and rendered the real estate market the domain of the wealthy.

When the average American reads about real estate and home sales in the news, he or she is probably thinking that the numbers that they see are pursuant to ordinary people just like them. When you consider the American dream of home ownership, it usually entails a young person or couple embarking on a career path, saving some money for a down payment, and then buying a home in the community where they live and work. We all know that this simple formula has been turned on its head recently, and much can be written on the topic. But today we want to point out the fact that home sales statistics have always been heavily impacted by a factor that everyday folks don’t stop to consider: second homes sales.

Since it is early in the year, 2009 statistics are not available yet for many industries, so I am going to have to use 2008 numbers. In 2008, 30% of homes that were sold were purchased by people who already owned at least one house. In 2005, that number was 40%. So when you read statistics about home sales, bear in mind that about a third of them, at minimum, are being bought by the elite who can afford to own multiple homes. The numbers do not accurately reflect the segment of the market that most of us are interested in–We The People who are looking to buy our only home.

We are anxious to see last year’s numbers, and it will be interesting to see what percentage of homes that were sold in 2009 were purchased by investors and those who are wealthy enough to purchase vacation homes.

The renegotiated loans were done through its own programs and the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, the bank said.

Bank of America has concluded more than 450,000 loan modifications since January 2008 under its own programs. That includes about 225,000 modifications so far this year.

Through the government program and others, Bank of America said it has provided $215 billion to refinance existing mortgages.

Bank of America was one of the hardest hit by the economic downturn. It received an initial $25 billion at the peak of the credit crisis last fall shortly after Lehman Brothers collapsed. It received another $20 billion in early January to help absorb losses at Merrill Lynch, which Bank of America had acquired.

Controversy surrounding the purchase of Merrill Lynch, including bonus payments made to Merrill employees, led to sharp criticism of then-CEO Ken Lewis.

Lewis retired Dec. 31 and Bank of America has struggled to find a successor because of pay restrictions handed down by the government as part of the bailout program.

Bank of America announced last week plans to use available cash and raise $18.8 billion in capital to repay the $45 billion in government assistance.

Bank of America shares fell 12 cents in morning trading to $16.16.

Some 650,000 borrowers are participating in the trial phase of the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, a $75 billion taxpayer-financed program launched this year.

Most home loan modifications result in lower monthly payments, although some lead to reduced principal on mortgages.

Trial modifications were initially for three months, but the Treasury added 60 days, effectively making them last five months.

Homeowners must submit more detailed documentation before they can have their loan modifications made permanent.

A Treasury Department survey of large mortgage servicers found “over 73 percent of borrowers are current in their trial plan payments,” Assistant Treasury Secretary Herbert Allison told a congressional oversight panel.

That leaves about 27 percent who are delinquent on the payments.

Allison provided written answers to questions raised at an October hearing before the Congressional Oversight Panel, which monitors the government’s foreclosure prevention plan and other financial rescue efforts.

Allison said that “while not all eligible borrowers will convert to permanent modifications, it is too early to estimate a failure rate, diagnose causes and predict future success rates.”

Experts say the conversion rate to permanent loans is the key to determining the program’s ultimate success or failure.

The Treasury has not published figures on how many trial loan modifications have been made permanent, but it said it will start doing so this month.

The next monthly report on the program will be released next week, Treasury Department spokeswoman Meg Reilly said.

This week Treasury officials threatened to fine mortgage lenders unless they speed efforts to give hard-pressed homeowners a permanent break on monthly payments.

According to a report from the congressional oversight panel, only 1,711 permanent mortgage modifications had been offered as of September 1, an indication of how reluctant banks seemed to move beyond trial offers.