Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell is warning about companies preying on Vermonters in financial distress by offering useless or non-existent "assistance" with settling credit card debt or rescuing mortgages in foreclosure.

"Many companies marketing these services to Vermonters are not licensed in Vermont and perform little or no meaningful service for the thousands of dollars they charge," Sorrell says.

The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) has published its Housing Market Profile for Q4 2010 for the Burlington/South Burlington area.

Some highlights:

A piece posted to the CNN/Fortune Web site today examines housing prices and the definition of affordability.

"Houses look more affordable than ever," Colin Barr writes, "but prices will have to fall further before many Americans can actually afford to buy one.

"With banks increasingly demanding substantial down payments, even supposedly affordable houses are a stretch for many."

Robin Howe of Colchester has joined VHFA as Multifamily Operations Specialist.

Robin ensures data integrity of the multifamily core software applications and provides administrative support to the VHFA Multifamily Management and Development departments.