A diverse retirement portfolio should include stocks. While generally considered high risk, stocks have proven throughout history to yield higher returns than bonds or any other investments. Whether you’re just starting your retirement investing or diversifying your portfolio, there are important things to remember before buying stocks on your own. Hire a professional When purchasing [...]
Your tax bracket determines how much you have to pay in taxes based on your income. In general, the higher your income, the higher your tax bracket, and the more you will pay when filing taxes. How do I determine my tax bracket? If you’re using a tax service, your tax professional should be able [...]
Home prices nationwide increased year-over-year, according to a new CoreLogic report. From January of 2013 to January of 2014, home prices, including distressed home sales, increased by an average of 12 percent. If you look at single-family sales in certain areas, appreciation is higher when distressed sales are included rather than excluded. You would think [...]
Want to spend less money without spending too much time figuring out how? Get some crisp, new bills from the bank. Apparently, when we have them, we don’t want to let them go, according to the Journal of Consumer Research study “Money Isn’t Everything, but It Helps If It Doesn’t Look Used: How the Physical [...]
Surprises can be fun, but not when they come in the form of unexpected taxes. When filing your 2013 taxes, be sure to keep an eye out for these four tax curveballs: 1. New tax brackets. There is a new top tax bracket of 39.6 percent, though it appears that it only affects a small [...]
This article was updated on 4/25/17. If you are gearing up to buy a home, your credit score could mean the difference between a manageable mortgage payment and one that breaks the bank. That’s because your credit score is one of the biggest factors lenders use to determine your mortgage interest rate and how much [...]
This article was written by guest blogger Eva Rosenberg. It’s one of the tax questions I’ve been asked more than once: Can unpaid taxes affect my credit score? Unfortunately, if you’re not careful, the answer is yes. Once upon a time, a friend quit his job and opened a business. In the first year, he [...]
Contract contingencies offer protection for people buying a home in case something goes wrong. There are three standard contract contingencies homebuyers should know about to make sure they can get out of a home agreement if they need to. Under certain circumstances, contract contingencies can keep homebuyers from facing penalties if they decide to walk [...]
Last year, housing prices increased more than they had in seven years, and buyers’ markets turned into sellers’ markets overnight. In many cities and towns across the country, this price jump was a result of inventory shortages that forced buyers to compete over the few homes that were available for sale. Will the housing recovery [...]
This week we found out that the negative equity rate for 2013 homeowners was below 20 percent for the first time in years, according to Zillow. Negative equity is when a house is worth less than the mortgage amount – commonly referred to as underwater. One year ago, 27.5 percent of all homeowners with a [...]
