Buying a house after retirement can be a good or bad idea. Deciding if it's better to rent or buy a house after retirement requires careful planning. Q: I am a 66-year old single female. I currently rent a home for $875 per month (low for this area because I have been in this location [...]
Most homeowners insurance policies don't cover fracking. Check with your insurance company to see if they have extra coverage for fracking. Q: I've not seen fracking addressed in your column but I understand that doesn't mean you haven't! Most homeowners do not know their home insurance does not cover fracking, even if they have earthquake [...]
Paid off your mortgage? To get documents showing your mortgage is paid off, check with your lender for a paid-in-full letter. Q: In your recent Real Estate Matters column you said that when you pay off your mortgage you should receive -- among other things -- the original note marked "paid" or shown with a [...]
If you’re a small business owner who has outgrown your spare bedroom or garage, or if you’re looking to expand to a new location, you might want to consider whether to buy or rent your next commercial space. Leasing Commercial Property Let’s start with making the decision to lease a commercial space. In some cases, you [...]
To many small business owners, a franchise sounds like the best of both worlds: You’re starting a small business on your own, but you’re not going it alone. Many business owners have built mini-empires by affiliating with franchisors instead of trying to build a brand from scratch. Franchising is a unique business arrangement, however, and [...]
“No one is indispensable,” goes the saying. But as many small business owners know, there may be one or more people whose knowledge, work, and overall contribution is in fact vital to the company. Many small businesses aren’t prepared for the consequences if the business owner or another highly valued employee becomes disabled or dies, dramatically reducing [...]
It’s important to teach your children how to budget wisely while they are still young, but how can you teach them to save money if they don’t have any? Allowance is one way that you can provide your children with money of their own to manage while you help them to learn by doing. Setting [...]
Spring is in full bloom, which makes now a great time to tackle some spring cleaning and finally sort through the clutter that piled up all winter long. Whether you are gearing up for a trip to your storage unit to pack away more stuff or thinking about renting a storage unit for the first [...]
A major cause of the housing crash in 2006 and 2007 was poorly documented mortgages that should not have been approved. Many of these mortgages ended in default and contributed to the four million foreclosures that cost families their homes and lowered home values by 50 percent or more in some communities. Mortgage lenders that [...]
If you want to perk up a real estate agent, just say, “Spring is here.” Spring is normally the busiest time of year for real estate agents and brokers, and this year looks to be more of the same. As February’s colder-than-average temperatures started to rise, the real estate market also began heating up. Sales [...]
