My Mind on Mortgages

If there is one thing I’ve learned over the years with regard to personal financial planning it’s that reviewing tax changes EARLY in the new year is important.  By the time December rolls around it is typically too late to make any meaningful changes to your tax bill for that year.  This will be especially [...]

The Oregonian’s Brent Hunsberger wrote a good article over the weekend outlining Oregon’s confusing property tax rules.  What makes things difficult for homeowners to understand is why their property taxes rise even when their home value declines.  Brent does a good job of explaining: “…tax bills will go up even though real market values declined [...]

In my interactions with first-time homebuyers I am often asked about special assistance programs that may be available for them.  I recently came across the HOMEOWNERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES WEBSITE NORTHWEST which provides a search tool where you can plug in information about yourself and see what programs might be available to you.  It’s an easy way [...]

If you’ve been following this blog for sometime then you may know that I earned my CFP® designation in 2010 and have begun working on a limited basis with clients providing financial planning services.  At this point I do not offer any financial products or services aside from my mortgage practice and am charging for [...]

I am slowly making my way through Jason Zweig’s book Your Money & Your Brain which is credited as being one of the books that brought the topic of neuroeconomics into the mainstream.  I have been fascinated with some of the concepts and experiments that Zweig outlines in this book.  One of these concepts he [...]

Mike over @ the Oblivious Investor blog sent out this post this morning regarding the application of asset allocation targets to multiple investment accounts.  It addresses the question of whether or not an investor needs to apply an asset allocation target to each and every investment account they own (i.e. IRA, 401K, and brokerage account) [...]

Matt Jabbs wrote THIS PIECE on the Debt Free Adventure website in which he makes a couple suggestions for how to track your spending.  I’ve blogged many times about how getting control of your cash-flow is the primary driver of building wealth yet also the most elusive for so many households.  If you spend as [...]

I was recently asked by a real estate professional if I knew the tax implication of a homeowner having mortgage debt forgiven via a short sale or foreclosure.   At the time I did not but have since researched the issue and thought I would blog about it.  Keep in mind that I AM NOT [...]

Has the housing market hit bottom yet?  In this week’s edition of The Economist magazine THIS ARTICLE was was published which points to a lot of encouraging evidence that would suggest we may be at bottom.  Here are some excerpts: *”House-ownership is beginning to look more affordable by many measures. Adjusted for inflation, prices are [...]

Since earning my CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation last year I have been asked numerous times by younger folks (I characterize “younger” in this instance to be < 40 years old) for help in determining if they are doing a good job with their finances.  Since these people typically haven’t been exposed to much long-term financial [...]