Tim Grant

1 week ago | post-gazette.com | Tim Grant

Compass Real Estate — the nation’s largest residential broker — has been trying to play a version of gatekeeper by keeping new home listings private long enough for its own agents and clients to get first dibs. But Zillow — the nation’s largest real estate portal — says it won’t play along. In a recent move that sent a bombshell through the real estate industry, Zillow announced that starting May 1, it will blacklist any property that starts its life behind Compass’s “private” curtain.

1 week ago | post-gazette.com | Tim Grant |Gus Faucher

Downtown-based PNC Financial Services Group reported a strong first quarter, but management cautioned that uncertainty around tariffs and trade wars threaten to harm the economy and consumers. "PNC had a strong start to the year,” Bill Demchak, chairman and CEO said Tuesday during the bank’s earnings call. “We grew customers and commercial loans, expanded our net interest margin, increased capital levels and maintained solid credit quality metrics.

1 week ago | post-gazette.com | Tim Grant

Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the recent selloff in Treasuries signaled a worrying drop in confidence in American policymaking, rather than a dysfunctional event that warrants Federal Reserve intervention. “I don’t think we’re seeing dysfunction — in the sense of liquidity completely drying up in the markets — but a pattern suggestive of a loss of confidence in U.S. economic policy,” Ms. Yellen said on CNBC Monday. The pattern “is really very worrisome,” she said.

1 week ago | post-gazette.com | Mark Belko |Madaleine Rubin |Evan Robinson-Johnson |Tim Grant

Svietlana Zabetchuk has been stuffing, folding and pinching pierogi in Pierogies Plus’s production kitchen for more than 20 years. So, of course, you expect her to be good at it. What surprises is how fast she can turn a 3-inch circle of dough and ice cream scoop of creamy mashed potato into the perfect half-moon dumpling. It takes the Ambridge resident a mere six seconds, start to finish.

2 weeks ago | post-gazette.com | Tim Grant

For many taxpayers, the hard part of tax season is over. They’ve dug up the W-2s, filed their taxes and now there’s nothing left to do but wait for the refund check from the Internal Revenue Service to hit the bank account. But with less than a week before the April 15 tax filing deadline, what if you’re still checking your account with no sign of extra cash? You’re not alone.