Want a 17.5 year mortgage without big payments?
If you have a 30 year mortgage, make 1 extra payment a year. The closer you make this payment to your 1st payment anniversary the quicker it is paid off. Do this every year. Make sure your tell your lender to apply the full payment to the principle. [...]
Careful Planning and Perfect Timing
A tax free exchange is the perfect way to keep money invested in real estate while growing your bank account. You don’t have to pay Uncle Sam when you sell one property to move up in value. An exchange is the best way to keep all of your money invested. Tax [...]
For some time, I’ve been telling anyone who would listen three little words: Buy the banks. And that was even before the drop-dead events of last Friday in Washington. In the wake of that, my investment advice has grown by another word: Buy the banks NOW.
Canada has great banks. They are money machines. They are [...]
Lucent at the fish counter: time to worry?
With a package of trout fillets in his hand, the guy in the fresh fish section of the supermarket looked relieved. “Garth,” he said, “thank God the Lucent warning didn’t take the Nasdaq down.”
Of course, he was right. When Lucent Technologies warned a few days ago that it [...]
Her name is Fran, 51, single mom. Sells real estate. On paper, Fran looks great. She has $700,000 in investments (GICs and mutual funds) and real estate worth $620,000. No debts or mortgages and her son is just finishing university.
But Fran is not feeling great. “In summary,” her letter to me reads, “after 31 years [...]
The economy and investment markets of the United States have stepped up to a new level of performance. While part of our good fortune is due to the difficult times in other countries, an important part is due to the dynamics of our labor market, low inflation, low interest rates and high rate of productivity. [...]
Michael Murphy, the chap who writes the California Stock Technology Letter (CTSL) has coined a new economic term: transcession. He is referring to the transition to the new economy that feels like a recession in the old economy. Transcession is well understood by investors who have bid up the stocks representing the new economy and [...]
The world can be divided into two general sets: problems and conditions. Conditions are circumstances to which we must adjust. Death, taxes, rainy [...]