Wow, what a summer we are having. The first major stay-at-home event in most of our lifetimes has happened in this country. People are turning to their backyards for family fun and recreation. Building a pool is just one of those fun things that are being built. For people who don’t have a pool, the […]
Refinancing: there are three reasons to refinance. 1. Lowering the cost of your housing, 2. To shorten the term of your mortgage loan and pay it off quicker, or 3. To use the equity in your home for another purpose like paying off credit card debt or home renovations. In today’s market, you can replace […]
Owning a home is a responsibility and a privilege. Even if you have owned a home for decades, you may still need help to handle some of its challenges by focusing on the three “M”s of homeownership: maintenance, minimizing expenses, and managing debt and risk. While you may recognize that you need an annual physical, […]
As a homeowner, you will receive a generous exclusion on the gain of your principal residence. Current rules stipulate $250,000 for single taxpayers and $500,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly. Many people probably consider the gain or profit to be the difference between the purchase price and the sales price. Before calculating your gain, the […]
A decade ago, some homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure or set up a short sale to get out from under the debt during the mortgage meltdown that caused the Great Recession. Lenders forgave all or part of the debt owed them in most cases. Again, in the early ’90s we had the Savings & […]
Your probably know someone in your life that has a tragic story. Whether it was a fire, a flood, a burglary, or another disaster they probably needed to file a claim on their insurance. To do this, you need receipts or a list of what you are claiming lost or damaged. And, since we are […]
To give you extra space in your home or get rid of unused items, you can have a well-planned garage or yard sale. You might even make some extra money, but you need to give it the same consideration that any business needs to be successful. Start your researching and planning early Promotion is a […]
Owners can finance improvements on their home by using home improvement loans as a funding source. Home improvement loans do not rely on the home as collateral and are instead personal installment loans. Due to the higher risk to the lender with these types of loans, the interest rate is often much higher than a […]
For centuries, the sentiment for frugality has been “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Whether or not Benjamin Franklin ever used this expression is up for debate, but he did say “Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.” When all is said and done, it is not how much […]
In 1913, the 16th amendment allowed personal income tax and one of the allowable deductions was mortgage interest paid on your principal residence. A follow up in 2017, Tax Cut and Jobs Act reduced the maximum amount of acquisition debt to $750,000 from $1,000,000. Acquisition debt is the amount of debt used to buy, build […]
