U.S. mortgage applications rose last week as interest rates came in mixed, an industry trade group's data showed Wednesday. Read more…

Over the past three decades, Santiago Calatrava has built more than 40 structures, ranging from bridges to train stations to museums. His best work has an emotional resonance rarely found in modern buildings, a power that lifts the greatest contemporary architecture from the structural to the sublime. Read more…

Volkswagen has the best "certified pre-owned" car program of an non-luxury brand, according to a survey by IntelliChoice.com. Read more…

BusinessWeek Online - Fannie Mae warned on Nov. 8 that it will be late providing its third quarter results -- but the New York Stock Exchange is letting the mortgage giant continue listing until at least Dec. 31. The news, along with gains by Democrats in the midterm elections, which may lessen the chances of legislation unfavorable to the mortgage-finance giant, appeared to boost investor confidence in the stock on Nov. 8. Read more…

AP - Rates on 30-year mortgages edged up slightly this week, reflecting market worries about inflation. Read more…

When you're staying at a hotel, would you like a pet goldfish to keep you company? Or perhaps warm cookies at bedtime to help lull you to sleep? Read more…

Car lots are filling up and auto makers are offering big discounts on several SUVs and trucks to clear inventory, Edmunds.com said Thursday. Read more…

AP - The soaring cost of homeowner's insurance may be starting a new retirement trend in the United States, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors said Friday. Read more…

When the Supreme Court ruled in the 2005 case, Kelo v. the City of New London, that a government agency could seize a citizen's home and give it to a private developer, it galvanized private-property advocates. Read more…

After slowing sharply in 2006, the housing market will coast along in 2007, according to a forecast released Friday by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the industry's largest trade group. Read more…

Detroit led all U.S. metro areas in the percentage of homes entering foreclosure during the third quarter, at more than four times the national average, according to a report released Friday. Read more…

Second Life, the three-dimensional virtual world, has been getting tons of press lately. In the software, which anyone can download for free, you travel around as an "avatar" representing yourself (with a different name), through a huge range of spaces - beautiful natural environments, shopping malls, museums, clubs, homes, apartments and cities. So far, it's signed up 1.3 million members. Read more…

If you had wandered into the New York location of Christie's auction house in 1996, you could have purchased a print of Helmut Newton's "Two Pairs of Legs in Black Stockings, Paris" for about $2,300. Read more…

Jose Muiz's career began when a friend bet him $100 that he could not sell butterflies for a living. Now, seven years later, the former business consultant and his wife, Karen, own Amazing Butterflies (amazingbutterflies.com), a live-butterfly distributor with offices in Tamarac, Fla., and San Jose, and a projected $1 million in revenues in 2006. Read more…

When selling a property on your own, you have an inherent advantage over everyone including real estate agents. You know what is special about it. Read more…

Reuters - The slowdown of the U.S. housing market will last through 2007 as inventories are pared enough to prompt a change in consumer psychology, the chief executive officer of the nation's biggest mortgage lender said on Tuesday. Read more…

AP - A former Fannie Mae chief executive who was ousted two years ago in the mortgage giant's accounting scandal will receive $2.6 million from the company under a deal disclosed Tuesday that largely resolves a pay dispute. Read more…

BusinessWeek Online - When stocks roar ahead, as they have been in Eastern Europe lately, having a strict buy and sell discipline and holding cash can help ease the whiplash when they turn south. Thomas Neuhold navigates The World Funds -- Eastern European Equity Fund (NASDAQ:VEEEX - News) in Vienna as a bottom-up value investor who examines the profitability and valuation levels of companies before he dips in. He has loaded up on stocks in banking, real estate, and telecom that will benefit from consumers' rising incomes in Eastern Europe. And he's avoiding the "overheated" commodities and energy stocks in Russia. Read more…

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If nothing else, you have to give Nintendo points for courage. When competitors decided to zig as the next generation of video game systems came along, Nintendo zagged -- and that gutsy decision may well give it an enormous market share boost in the coming years. Read more…

Herman Miller, the company that created the cubicle and the Aeron chair, has long been admired for its innovation and quality. That sparkling reputation made it the top furniture maker on our 2006 ranking of America's Most Admired Companies - a position it's held for 18 of the past 20 years. Read more…

Reuters - Reckson Associates Realty Corp. said on Thursday that investors Carl Icahn and Harry Macklowe have offered to acquire the New York area real estate company for $49 per share in cash. Read more…

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Mike Scoglietti the "Insider" shares almost 40 years of financial and political experience with close friends and others interested in learning from that experience. Visit us at DynamicTrends, or just become a subscriber - FREE- for a fresh and original perspective on today's financial and political issues. Read more…