All over the country, many people have found themselves in a bad situation as far as paying for their house is concerned. They either took out a mortgage that was too big, got mixed up with the wrong type of loan, or are simply out of money due to a job loss, etc
Although this is a scary experience if you are faced with it, there are some ways that you can get around it if you try hard enough. This is not to say that your lender is going to let you slide time and time again, but there are some things that you can do in order to stop foreclosure.
Listed below are three details to consider if you are attempting to stop foreclosure. These are not guaranteed to work for you and your situation, but they are at least worth trying out.
1. One of the best ways to stop foreclosure is to make sure that you are never faced with this situation. In other words, make sure that you have all of your finances in order before you move forward with buying a home. The main reason that people get stuck with a foreclosure
process is that they did not research their purchase.
2. You may be able to stop foreclosure by getting in contact with your lender as soon as your first missed payment pops up. As you can imagine, lenders do not look into foreclosure just because you missed one payment. But with that being said, they will want their money, and
if you ignore them foreclosure is on the way. It is important that you communicate with your lender if you are worried about foreclosure. This way, they can help to work out a deal with you.
3. If foreclosure is imminent, you may want to attempt to sell your home before things get too bad. Selling during the pre- foreclosure process is a great idea for some people. This allows you to get some money out of your home; even if you only get enough to pay off a small
portion of your loan. Remember, if a foreclosure takes place you are not going to have the chance to take advantage of these benefits.
If you are worried about foreclosure, the three tips above may help you to avoid it.
If there is one place that there is much misinformation, it is in how much you need to save for retirement. The mutual fund industry has spent much time and effort to propagandize to folks why they can accomplish this using mutual funds. The truth is much different. Now there is one caveat before I go into the numbers. If you are fortunate to have a defined benefit pension, then you can make it work by putting monthly money aside into a mutual fund inside a IRA/401K wrapper. Even better if you also qualify for social security. But, if you really want to accumulate enough to have a comfortable retirement then pay attention. If you don't have a defined benefit pension, then it is critical that you understand the following.
Mutual funds have been sold as a safe/low risk investment. And that is truthful. But the rule of finance is that the lower the risk the lower the potential rate of return. Now we know that individuals that purchase mutual funds average 2.5%-4% rate of return. But for the point of this exercise lets assume a 8% rate of return (the average mutual fund return).
Now here is my rule of thumb. In order to build enough wealth to have a comfortable retirement you must get 15% rate of return from you investments. Let me show you why.
Lets say you put away $300/month until your retirement in 25 years. Let's also assume you never fail to put this money away. If you get a 8% return on investment, you would have $285,308 after those 25 years. This can produce $22,800 of taxable income per year assuming that same 8%. Not bad. That puts you in the top quarter of net worth for folks in the United States. However, you haven't accounted for inflation. Taking official inflation statistics, which I believe seriously understates inflation, that $285,308 has the buying power of $142,654 or $11,400 year. But that is on day one of retirement. The average person will live another 20-25 years. So by the time you die that $285,308 will only have $71,327 of buying power or $5,700/year.
Now let's run the numbers with 15%. Same deal, $300/month for 25 years. Now you have $973,059 and using 8% of it each year you would have $77,844/year. But the buying power would only be $38,922 when you retire and $19,461 at likely death.
Now that is more like it! But you say how can I get 15% without risk? You can't. But you can get 15% assuming less but a different type of risk than you have with mutual funds.
First, can you spot the risk of investing in mutual funds? Well it is the very real risk of running out of money before you die. In fact, 90% of retired folks are financially dependant on the government or family/friends before they die. Remember mutual funds have been sold to the public for 2 generations and that strategy has been pushed for just as long. So that risk is extremely high.
Here is the less risky way.
1. Find a stock that has returned over 15% for over 40 years.
2. Use leverage. If you leverage an investment three to one you only have to have that asset return 5% to get that 15% return.
For regular readers you now should know the answers. There is only one stock that has returned over 15% for 40+ years. Berkshire Hathaway. In fact it has returned over 21% for 43 years. Over 18% for the last 10 years. I put my bet on Warren Buffett the driving force behind Berkshire Hathaway.
Finally, investment real estate, properly structured in growth areas have historically returned over 6%. You can leverage this with mortgages. And you get all the tax advantages of real estate.
Your choice on the risk. Bet on two things that have proven to give superior returns over the last two generations, or bet on mutual funds which have proven to given inferior returns over the last two generations.
Hi. While I am sure there is a whole boatload of designers (perhaps even me) that would love to build a website for you, I recommend that you proceed with caution.
You website will be an extension of your image online. Therefore, it is imperative to find the right developer.
First, there are a few things that you should consider.
1.) Your budget. Know what it is before you begin to negotiate.
2.) What you want. make sure you have a concrete idea regarding what you are looking for. With that said, if you want the moon and the stars, be willing to pay for them. Building a website is a time consuming venture and a good designer will want to be paid a fair price.
3.) Content. What do you want your site to say. The more the better. It is up to you to write this. Do not make your designer do it. While they may be articulate and be able to write good copy, they are not you. After all, isn't it your online personna?
4.) If you have a shoestring budget, then consider a template. Template Monster is a good place to start. Their templates are priced fair and more importanly, they are retired after 10 downloads. This way you can be assured your site is relatively original. The have hundreds of real estate sites to choose from.
If you do go with a template, I still recommend having a professional customize it. With that said, the bar isn't so high and a good pro-am (professional/amatuer) designer should be able to pull it off.
*I should say I am an Monster Template affiliate.
5.) Time. The more time you can devote to upkeep and new content the better. You will only get as much out of your site as you are willing to put into it.
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