"A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year."Paul Sweeney
|
| |
How to get a Loan
Many a thing available in today's market is too expensive that most of the people find it difficult to increase or raise so much of money in no time. For example, if you want to buy or build a house, the entire exercise is bound to set one back by ...
The Avoid Debt Secret
Financial talking heads on television and radio try to tell you how to get out of debt, stay out of debt, or what dance steps to use to avoid debt. Just about everything they say is the wrong thing. I don’t mean they are lairs and you should ignore them. ...
The World is Not Enough - Calling for a More Ethical Approach to Personal Finance
At a time when the entire world’s attention is focused on the problems of world debt, with the Live 8 concerts, the G8 summit in Scotland, the Make Poverty History Campaign (MPH) and the various anti-poverty marches, it seems that everyone wants the ...
|
|
|
| |
So you’ve been renting an apartment for a while and your friends are all buying houses and settling down to nice, quiet suburban lifestyle. Is this something you should be doing too? To put even more pressure on you, every other evening news cast is talking about the rapidly increasing value of houses in your area.
Before you rush out and buy the first house you can get a loan for, perhaps it would be wise to stop and decide if buying a house is really what you should be doing. To help you, here are four things to think about.
1. How long will you live there?
If your job requires frequent moves, or you are pretty sure you will not be in the same city in five years, do not buy a house. Real estate prices do sometimes dip and if you move you may have to sell your house at a loss.
2. Are you a Flipper?
Flipping is the art of buying a house, living in it for a time as you fix and improve it and then selling it for a profit. You then buy another house, live in it for a time, and sell it for a profit. The risk here is similar to that in the previous paragraph; the resale value of the house may go down. So if you are going to be a flipper, be sure to buy a house you would want to live in for the next ten years.
3. Does renting cost more than owning?
Sometimes you can find a house that is actually cheaper to own than the place you are currently renting. If you are purchasing a house purely for the sake of less cash outflow each month, be sure to consider all the costs of ownership: mortgage, insurances, maintenance, snow removal, etc. If you still find that owning is more cost effective than renting, go for it.
4. Is it what you really, really want to do?
Occasionally owning a house is what you really want to do, even if it doesn’t make economic sense. In that case, make sure you do your homework, consider the three thinking points above, and make the best choice you can. Buy the most house for the least money in the best neighborhood.
Buying a house can be an emotionally charged time in your life. It is also an enormous user of your resources. Take your time and be confident that you are ready to move into another stage of your life where you can be proud to say “This is my house.”
About the Author Roger Sorensen is America’s Financial Guide. Learn more at his website www.Slave2Work.com – ask and receive answers to your personal finance questions, read his writings, or join the newsletter Money Basics. “How-To Be Debt Free!” is now for sale, read about it today at www.Slave2Work.com/debtfree.html
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Personal Finance - Businessday Online
There is no doubt that taxes affect the net after-tax-rate of returns that you earn from investing in different kinds of assets. With taxes, the government shares in a portion of the gains you earn from your investments
Personal-finance guru updates advice for the recovery - San Jose Mercury News
The first time I read Jane Bryant Quinn's book "Making the Most of Your Money," it struck me as the personal-finance equivalent of "The Joy of Cooking." Everything you ever wanted to know was somewhere in those pages. But with more than 1,000 pages ...
The end of Personal Finance - msnbc.com
Years ago, when I wrote a popular financial makeover feature for a major national newspaper, one of our subjects asked if he should be plowing his more than $50,000 in savings into gold. It was 1997 and gold was trading at a little more than $300 an ...
Iteya.com: Top Personal Finance Blogs for Managing ... - Earthtimes
The problem is that most people aren't taught how to handle their earnings. Fortunately, there are websites out there that can help. Iteya.com, a website dedicated to saving people cash, has come up with a list of the best personal finance blogs ...
|
