Links: Young Homeowners, Tracking Rent, 1930 Flashbacks, Cheaper Textbooks, & More

A Second Home, a Starter Budget – NY Times
An article about a young couple who rent in Brooklyn but instead bought their first house in the Catskills – a two-bedroom, one-bath, 700sf fixer-upper for $95,000. Check out the picture gallery, I like their sense of interior design using Craigslist finds.

Rental Rates – InvestorLoft
Another resource for tracking rental rates, with a focus on single family homes and condos. Not sure of where they get their data, though. Compare with Rent-o-meter, which I think pulls from Craigslist.

News from 1930
This site reads the Wall Street Journal for each corresponding day in 1930, and offers a sometimes eerie look into the similarities and differences between today and then. (The Great Depression is said to have started with the crash of 1929.) Just like now, there is a lot of uncertainty about the future, and there is always the headline “Leading economists say [insert wild guess here]…”

Textbook Publisher to Rent to College Students
What’s not clear is how much cheaper it is than simply buying new and selling back later. I never understood how a book on a subject like Calculus could have a “new” edition every two years. There should be a law requiring at least 20% new material or something on new editions.

More good stuff from other personal finance blogs:

• 10 Random IRS Observations at The Tax Lawyer’s Blog
• Buying and Storing Meat in Bulk at Lazy Man and Money
• 29 Reasons Why Being A Part Time Entrepenuer Sucks by The Happy Rock
• How to Brew Your Own Beer by Jeremy of Generation X Finance
• My Mortgage Refinancing Journey by Steve at Personal Finance Start-up
• The Infomercial Copycat Method of Debt Reduction by Simon at Realm of Prosperity
• Spend Less Menu Week 3 at Money Funk