If investing in real estate appeals to you but you are not so well heeled that you can go shopping for investment properties like they were appliances, you may want to give some thought to investing in one or more real estate investment trusts (REIT). As you would with shares of common stocks, you can buy and sell different REITs, and having REITS in your portfolio of investments could be a good way to add some diversification. Another attraction for REITs is that you can invest in them with relatively small amounts of money, as compared with the sums required to buy the real estate itself.
Investing
Financial Fraud Against The Elderly
It is a sad and sobering reality that scam artists intent on committing financial fraud or the outright stealing of money, property, or valuable information prey upon vulnerable senior citizens. The threats can take many forms, but the elderly and those watching out for them can have some measure of protection by taking a few … Read more
Underwater Homeowners Get A Life Raft
The travails of the housing market in recent years are well documented. The prevalent symbols of this downturn are the “underwater” homeowners, who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. About 4.6 million such homeowners have mortgages backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, and fully 80% of those owners haven’t missed any mortgage payments.
Chalk One Up For The Little Guy
Nate Thoma is not a lawyer, but he is a soft-spoken, yet confident, small investor in Washington Mutual, the big bank that was seized by the federal government
in 2008 and ended up in bankruptcy. As for so many other investors, Nate’s stake in the bank was wiped out. Nate became something of a folk hero during that
tumultuous period when big banking institutions were failing and the little people always seemed to get the short end of the stick as the messes were being
cleaned up.
Nate’s big moment came when, after he had spent untold hours analyzing the Washington Mutual case, the federal bankruptcy judge let him have his say–and at
some length–in a hearing that culminated in an investigation of trading by some very large hedge funds and in the rejection of a bankruptcy plan for the bank.
SBA Loans Can Help To Finance Small Businesses
It is no secret that businesses generally, and small businesses in particular, have been through rough times, and those are not over yet. Still, there is some
assistance to be had as a small business owner if you know where to look. One prominent example is the Small Business Administration (SBA) and its
Guaranteed Loan Programs.
Borrowers, Lenders, And Processing Payments
The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) is a federal consumer protection law that regulates the real estate settlement process, including the servicing of loans and the assignment of those loans. RESPA places a number of duties on lenders and loan servicers, including requirements that borrowers be given notice by both a transferor and a transferee when their loan is transferred to a new lender or servicer, and that loan servicers respond promptly to borrowers’ written requests for information.
FDIC Insurance Update
Last summer, a law was enacted that raised the standard maximum deposit insurance amount (SMDIA) to $250,000. The law made permanent a previous temporary increase to $250,000 from the former maximum limit of $100,000. The new permanent maximum limit should especially benefit consumers who figure to have more than $100,000–such as in multi-year certificates of … Read more
Different Ways to Hold Investment Property
Convinced that property values have finally bottomed out in your area, you decide to take the plunge and buy some real estate as an investment. As the saying goes, buy low and (hope to) sell high. In such ventures, one of the earliest and most important decisions concerns which type of ownership entity is best suited for raising capital and securing the financing to fund the acquisition or improvement of the property.
FDIC Insurance Update
In October 2008, Congress increased the basic limit on federal deposit insurance coverage from $100,000 to $250,000. The limit is scheduled to return to $100,000 on January 1, 2014. The temporary limit now in effect has not changed the fact that a customer has various means by which to effectively raise the applicable limit for … Read more
Roth 401(k)s
It has become more common for employers to offer not only conventional 401 (k) retirement plans, but, since they became available in 2006, also Roth 401(k) plans.
For 2009, an employee can put away a total of up to $16,500 in a 401 (k) plan. If the employee is at least 50 years old or will be before the end of the year, the maximum contribution rises to $22,000 because of a “catch up” contribution of up to $5,500. The total contribution may be allocated between 401(k) and Roth 401(k) accounts. In fact, the prevailing view is that it is a good idea to have some money in both types of plans because doing so will yield benefits from a diversified exposure to taxes.