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New Year offers the chance of a fresh start, and one of the most positive changes you can make is to get your finances into shape. When your money's under control, life's less stressful in most other ways as well. Here are seven New Year's resolutions which will help smooth your financial path through 2018.

Stop One Bad Habit

The path to a better budget is easier when you take it one step at a time. This New Year, think of one bad financial habit you have and aim to eliminate it as soon as you can. Whether this is online impulse shopping you later regret or a weakness for eating out when you can't really afford it, making one single change is more achievable than trying to change your whole financial life around.

Details about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act were released on November 2, 2017, and though it was promised that mortgage deductions would not be affected, there have been several noticeable changes. The bill is still in its early stages, but it is important to know how it could affect your home buying decisions in the future.

The times have certainly changed! Just a few short years ago no one would even have thought of applying online for a mortgage. A recent study by the American Bankers Association showed that 60% of real estate borrowers today prefer to apply in person for their mortgage instead of applying online.  I’m not surprised that it’s 60%, I’m surprised that 40% of today’s borrowers would choose NOT to be face to face with their banker. That same survey revealed that 66% of today’s borrowers are not confident with their knowledge of the mortgage process. Could be a fairly strong correlation and the reason the borrower would want a ‘real’ person helping them.

CoreLogic recently showed that the value of home equity has doubled in the past five years. Most of that is not from borrowers paying down on the principle but in the added value of real estate. The value has gone from $6 trillion five years ago to $13 trillion this year. Not only that, but CoreLogic is predicting another $1 trillion additional being added to the equity side in this year alone! Now there is a wide variation depending on what part of the country you are in, but everyone has gained equity.

Are your property taxes too high? If you think so, you’re standing with some pretty high rollers. Walt Disney Parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios), along with SeaWorld, Universal Orlando, and other commercial property owners have filed over 100 lawsuits against the Orange County Appraiser Rick Singh. But believing that their properties assessments are exceeding fair market value and proving it in the Orange Circuit Court will be two different things!

The county assessor (Singh) valued Epcot at $446 million, Magic Kingdom at $437 million and Hollywood Studios at $339 million. There are other lawsuits for quite a few hotels that are not just owned by Disney, but by other corporations.

The New York district Federal Reserve came out with a very interesting report, household debt has hit a level that is above the peak level of 2008! Does this mean we’re in trouble? I don’t think so. Household debt level includes credit cards, consumer loans (such as autos), student loans and also real estate (or home loans).

Real Estate loans have dropped from a 2008 high of 73% to 68%, and with the tougher lending requirements since 2008, those real estate loans are in good position credit wise. The real difference in credit from 2008 is student loans and auto loans. Those categories are significantly higher.

The week after Comptroller of the Currency closed First NBC Bank of New Orleans another billion dollar plus bank was closed, Guaranty Bank of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Bad loans seemed to be the primary cause but Guaranty Bank also had an insane number of branches located in grocery stores. Out of 119 branches, 107 were located in grocery or similar retail outlets.

In April one of the largest bank failures in years occurred. State regulators shut down First NBC Bank, New Orleans. The FDIC was appointed the receiver and they promptly sold a small part of the assets (about 1 billion) to Whitney Bank. The December total assets of NBC were 4.74 billion. Of course, no customers lost money, but the FDIC really took a hit to its Deposit Insurance Fund.

Ohio recently enacted a ban on the use of plywood when boarding up vacant properties. Ohio is also the first state to enact a ban of this type. Property preservation has been a significant issue for many states that have areas of abandoned properties. To see a neighborhood of boarded-up houses creates a neighborhood blight issue that is hard to overcome.

Ellie Mae recently provided information on the loans flowing through their platform. They are a software provider that was founded in 1997 that many community banks utilize. Right now, they are handling almost a quarter of the loans made in the United States. That’s a decent % and the data they provide is a good reflection of the actual mortgage market.

The March data looks like this: 63% of their mortgages were purchase, and 37% were refi, a significant change from the past nine months. Refi’s had been running in the mid to high 40’s. The time to close (all days) was an across the board 43 days.