Did you know the FDIC sells real estate?

WASHINGTON — Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. real-estate sales this year are the highest since 1994 as the regulator takes over properties held by failed lenders.

The FDIC raised $727 million from building and land sales in the first nine months of 2009 compared with $1.16 billion in all of 1994, according to FDIC data. The agency sold 1,706 properties, according to its website, the highest number since 2,045 in 1996.

The failure of 148 lenders since 2007 is giving homebuyers and real-estate investors the chance to purchase office buildings, undeveloped land for houses and even gas stations from the FDIC. The agency may also have hundreds of millions of dollars in loans for sale from shuttered banks.

"It seems that they're a little understaffed and they're very busy trying to fold a bank a weekend or five banks a weekend," Barry Sternlicht, chairman and chief executive of Starwood Property Trust, said on a conference call Monday.

The FDIC real-estate sales are helping companies including CB Richard Ellis Group and closely held Prescient, which are brokering transactions, and J.P. King Auction, which has held FDIC auctions in Detroit and Atlanta.

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Is your cell phone picking your pocket?

Today, all of us depend heavily on our mobile phones for business and personal use. While that's normal, if you're not careful your plan might be taking a toll on your wallet every month without you noticing especially, since most of us pay by credit card, it becomes even more hidden. Here are two simple tips that might help you save on your bill.

Texters- New word! Depending on your plan for texting you could be under utilizing and paying for a lot of message allotments that you don't use, or getting socked with over-message charges which can add up. Evaluate your actual texting needs and adjust your plan to closely follow it. Unlimited plans are certainly appropriate for some, but if you text very little you could be wasting a lot of money for "just in case". Also, if you subscribe to unnecessary auto text feeds (news, weather, etc.) or other low quality spam or related messages, you could be adding to your total count greatly, since receive messages count the same.

Contract options- If you change phones outside the contract term it could cost you greatly. It really pays to select the contract term to ensure you're able to keep the phone for the entire term. Finally, select your phone carefully, to get one that fits your needs now and maybe up to 2 years, without having to live out the that term with dinosaur features.