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Cost to Deport 12 Million Illegals: Over $200 Billion

"As Congress debates immigration reforms, some experts say the most extreme proposal — deporting millions of illegal immigrants — would be a huge legal and logistical morass, and ruinously expensive, too. Officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which would be responsible for deportations, said they have no projections on what it would take to rid the United States of an estimated 12 million people. But the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, has put the cost at $215 billion over five years. The study assumed that a crackdown would prompt a quarter of the nation's illegal immigrants to leave voluntarily, leaving 9 million men, women and children to deport." More...

Best Fuel Efficient Cars

"CNNMoney and Edmunds.com select the top cars to buy that are smart buys and easy on fuel. You find plenty of lists out there of cars that get the best fuel economy. Those lists are easy to produce, but they aren't really of much use. For example, the most fuel-efficient car on the market today is the Honda Insight, but do you really want to buy a rough-riding two-seater with no storage space? After all, you probably need your car to do more than just get you from one place to another. You might like to carry a few other people or some luggage. You might even want a little driving enjoyment from all those miles you're driving with each fill-up."

These "vehicles in five categories...get very good fuel mileage but...are also otherwise outstanding automotive values. There's no point to buying a fuel-efficient car that doesn't pay off in other ways. We've selected five -- a luxury car, family sedan, sports car, crossover SUV and a subcompact -- that are smart buys and easy on fuel."

"None of the top cars are hybrids. That's because, with their added cost, hybrids aren't really a good value from a purely economic standpoint." Unless you are "willing to pay more to burn less fuel."

"...Toyota is well represented on this list. That's because Toyota does two things particularly well. They build high-quality cars by every measure and cars that are very fuel-efficient."

Home prices in California are most overvalued; Texas has bargains!

CNNMoney.com reports that, according to Local Market Monitor, a real-estate market research provider, "Through the third quarter of 2005, 79 of the 100 surveyed markets had gotten more expensive, relative to what Local Market Monitor calculates as fair value."

"At the top of the list for overpriced cities was Santa Barbara, Calif. at 86 percent overvalued. The average home there should cost $308,900, according to the Local Market Monitor. Instead it sold for $573,100. The survey found that only 16 of the markets had gotten less expensive."

"Overall, 37 markets were found to be severely overpriced, which meant that they were at least 15 percent more expensive than they should be, and only 6 were underpriced by 15 percent or more. Fifty-seven were deemd to be fairly priced."

"...some regions, especially in the red-hot Sunshine State, continue to experience accelerating home prices. These included Naples, Fla. where prices increased 32 percent in the 12 months through the end of the third quarter. That's after more modest increases of 18 percent in 2004 and 9 percent in 2003.
Other still-booming markets included Phoenix (up 34 percent), Cape Coral/Ft. Myers, Fla. (33 percent), and Deltona/Daytona Beach, Fla. (27 percent)."

"The level of over-valuation matters in three ways, according to Ingo Wenzer, president of Local Market Monitor. The higher it is, the greater the risk of it correcting; the greater the correction can be; and the longer it will take to return to present-day prices after they fall. 'Once markets are overpriced by 40 percent or so, the risk is pretty high and the adjustment can take five to 10 years,' said Winzer."

The cities where housing prices are most out of whack.
Most overvalued markets

Biggest housing bargains in the USA.
Most undervalued markets