Housing News Digest, September 22

Comcast: $10/month Internet—and cheap netbooks—for the poor
Comcast rolled out its Internet Essentials program nationwide today, offering low-income families in its service territory $10/month Internet connections and access to $150 computers.

Any family with at least one child who qualifies for the free lunch program at public schools can subscribe to a low-speed (1.5Mbps) Comcast Internet connection for $9.95 a month. Comcast guarantees that it won't raise the price and offers the plan without equipment rental or activation fees. Subscribers also cannot have "an overdue Comcast bill or unreturned equipment," and they can't have had Comcast Internet in the last 90 days.

Moody’s downgrades three US banks

Moody’s downgraded the credit ratings of Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, three of the biggest US banks, over concerns that the US government would be less likely to rescue the lenders if they faced failure.

Colorado personal income growth slows
Colorado's personal income growth slowed to 1.1 percent between the first and second quarters, the same as the national average, the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday.

The deceleration in personal growth was more severe for the nation, after a 2.1 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of this year.

The 1990 federal census counted 60,391 people in Douglas County, located midway between Colorado's two largest cities, Denver and Colorado Springs. But a subsequent wave of suburbanization inflated the county's population 373 percent to a 2010 total of 285,465.

Colorado county has America's youngest housing stock
The 1990 federal census counted 60,391 people in Douglas County, located midway between Colorado's two largest cities, Denver and Colorado Springs. But a subsequent wave of suburbanization inflated the county's population 373 percent to a 2010 total of 285,465.

This 20-year boom is the reason why Douglas County's housing stock is the youngest in America, based on the share of its single-family houses, townhouses and apartments that have built since 1990, 76.7 percent.

Motels housing dozens of sex offenders, not telling guests
Motels are not legally obligated to tell you who is staying in the room next door, even if that person is a registered sex offender. There are no laws in Colorado restricting where sex offenders can live, although guidelines may be established by the court in individual cases.