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Experience the Charm of Del Cerro

May 13th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Del Cerro Real Estate

Del Cerro is an established community located just 15 minutes east of downtown San Diego. The town is commonly referred to as, “The Hill” by its residents, borrowing loosely from the Spanish translation of its name. Homeowners delight in its commanding views of the expansive Mission Valley and its surrounding areas. The town is set against a scenic backdrop of mountains, stunning canyons and distant hills. Del Cerro’s quaint and scenic beauty lends to its unique, peaceful charm. Minutes away, Lake Murray offers an opportunity to picnic, swim, and even do a bit of fishing. The magnificent Mission Trails Regional Park spans 5,000 acres and features 40 miles of lovely trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding. Back in town, Del Cerro Boulevard is lined with a multitude of unique shops and restaurants. Choose to live in Del Cerro, and treat yourself to a wonderful lifestyle!

Arcadia Offers an Exclusive Lifestyle in the Coveted Scottsdale Corridor

May 13th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Arcadia Real Estate

An exiting lifestyle awaits you in the lovely neighborhood of Arcadia. It’s located mere minutes from Camelback Mountain, and just a short drive from fine local shopping and dining destinations. World-class resorts and the charming shops of Old Town Scottsdale are also in close proximity. Hike Camelback Mountain’s trails, or shop at the upscale Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall. Explore Echo Canyon Park, or tee off at the spectacular Phoenician Golf Club. Play 18 holes at the Arizona Country Club, which is conveniently located within the community. Arcadia is a former orange grove, and is renowned for its lush landscaping and abundant greenery. In addition to its close proximity to Scottsdale’s fine shops and restaurants, the community is also just a few minutes away from downtown Phoenix. Discover Arcadia, and you’ll discover a great place to live!

An Exciting Lifestyle Awaits You in Glendale

May 13th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Glendale Real Estate

Just 10 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix is the charming, family-oriented suburb of Gelendale. Home to the Phoenix Coyotes hockey team and Arizona Cardinals football team, Glendale offers a wealth of unique and enriching activities. Historic Sahuaro Ranch is an historic landmark, and features tours of its 17 ranch buildings that were built in 1885. It’s also the site of the annual Antique Tractor and Engine Show. The town’s very own Thunderbird Park encompasses 1,000 acres of desert preserve, and residents delight in its miles of jogging, hiking and biking trails. Every winter, the Glendale Glitters celebration lights up the historic downtown district for a full two months! Fabulous holiday decorations and special activities mark the festival. Visitors browse dozens of antique shops and specialty stores, which stay open well into the evening. Purchase a home in Glendale, and treat yourself to a wonderful life!

Payroll Tax Updates

May 13th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Selwyn Gerber writes:

Tax planning

For those lucky investors who recognize the wisdom on Rip Van Winkle’s investment style, superior returns can be reached by simply purchasing two ETFs and calling it a day. Nevertheless, even better returns are achievable by applying diligence to investing right. Returns can be further enhanced through proper portfolio maintenance, which includes annual rebalancing.

“To invest successfully does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What’s needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding the framework.”
- Warren Buffett

Tax liens

Merriam Webster defines religion as “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor….” RVW investing is a highly scientific method of investing that has been empirically tested and has stood the test of time. Much like a religious belief, it requires dedication to – and unwavering commitment to – a core set of principles that have withstood the test of time. In this chapter we will review the fundamentals of RVW portfolio construction and provide a simple 2-ETF portfolio suitable for small investors. Moreover, we will outline the reasons that we believe that nuance and sophistication can be applied to these fundamentals to further mitigate risk and enhance returns.

Tax savings

Fundamentalist Rip

To be clear, successful investing requires less action than most investors, large and small alike, are comfortable with. The Rip Van Winkle approach is based on Nobel Prize winning theories that demonstrate how index investing consistently beats active management. It relies on more advanced research which demonstrates that value stocks, small cap stocks, and international stocks usually outperform the major market indexes. Diversification has been shown in studies to reduce risk, and is employed in this strategy. These principles guiding this investment strategy are derived from Nobel Prize winning theory and extensive research:

www.revver.com/video/738626/tax-preparation-tax-savings-with-gerbercocom-cpa/
www.revver.com/video/738636/tax-preparation-tax-savings-with-gerbercocom-cpa/
www.revver.com/video/738597/credit-score-tax-planning-tax-savings-with-gerbercocom-cpa/

1. Invest in index funds or ETFs: Indexes tend to outperform active managers 90% of the time by eliminating individual stock risk and sector risk, leaving only pure market risk

2. Diversify across asset classes: Asset allocation determines over 90% of the volatility in a portfolio and the greater the diversity of your holdings, the smaller the risk associated with any one component of your portfolio.

3. Ruthless cost cutting: Reduce the layers of cost (taxes and management fees).

These three fundamentals can be applied using an exceedingly simple formula. The following basic portfolio is not recommended for an investor whose total investment is greater than $100,000. For those investors investing more than $100,000 but would like to avoid the headache and lost sleep of employing the more complex strategies discussed later in this chapter, there are quite a few financial advisors that will provide these services for a modest fee. We do recommend, however, that you only employ those advisors that have the expertise and orientation to manage ETF portfolios for tax efficiency, and believe in and apply the RVW philosophy.

While the simplicity is appealing, sophisticated investors should use a skilled investment advisor to develop an enhanced approach to asset allocation and the selection of intelligent indexing. The basic RVW equity allocation will beat 90% of managers, but custom portfolios may include gold, oil, resources and non-cap weighted indexes which will do even better than that.

You can put RVW to work immediately and maintain the portfolio in less than 1 hour annually. Here’s how:

Step 1: Fire your asset manager and move the funds to a discount broker

Step 2: Do a simple asset allocation as outlined below to determine your equity: bond ratio bearing in mind that for the larger investable amounts the key question to bear in mind is for whom the investment are actually being made. (If an allocation to bonds is not appropriate because you are very young or have less than $100,000 to invest, skip step 3). Applying the simple RVW Portfolio Asset Allocation Model ®, the general rule is to take one’s age from 120 and allocate that to the equity percentage. For example, a 20 year old should have 100% in equities and 0 in bonds; a 70 year old should have 50% in equities and the rest of the portfolio in bonds.

Step 3: Determine whether you should be in taxable or tax-free bonds with reference to both your marginal tax rate and the relative interest rates of both categories. (A quick call to your tax preparer will tell you your marginal tax rate and your Alternative Minimum Tax status. This calculation can be delegated to your tax preparer.)

Step 4: Implement the portfolio. (If you are investing any portion of the funds into equities for the first time we suggest you stage that transfer over a period of say 3 - 9 months in a staged and planned manner so as to avoid timing the market. Funds already in equities should immediately be moved into the RVW equity portfolio).

Step 5: Redo this calculation annually to rebalance the portfolio and check the taxable v tax-free bond allocation.

RVW investing is a highly scientific method of investing that has been empirically tested and has stood the test of time. Much like a religious order, it requires dedication to – and unwavering commitment to – a core set of principles that are eternal. For those of us who have seen the light of long term index-based investing, Rip Van Winkle is elevated to “prophet” of a new “passivity pays” approach to investment success

For small investors, those with less than $100,000, the first step of the simple formula is to place 75% of assets into an ETF representing the broad stock market, such as the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (symbol: VTI). This ETF includes small cap stocks which research shows are likely to outperform the more popularly followed indexes such as the S&P 500. The remaining 25% of assets should be place into the Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF (symbol: VEU) which includes international stocks of both established and emerging foreign markets. Again, research has shown that international stocks beat the U.S. markets over the long-term. By rebalancing every year, this small investor is likely to generate better returns than more than 90% of mutual fund managers.

Asset Allocation

The basic portfolio above has a distinct disadvantage. While it does capture all of the key advantages of a well diversified global index based approach, it lacks the nuance necessary to optimize the profit potential. Moreover, by neglecting to include bonds, the portfolio will be more volatile than an optimum portfolio and will not generate sufficient cash distributions.

The first enhancement to RVW Investing is: a little elbow grease applied to asset allocation will lead to more restful sleep, and greater potential wealth. While hard work is an anathema to old Rip, statistics show it has its appropriate time and place.

More than four decades ago, Nobel Prize-winning economists Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller, demonstrated the intrinsic relationship between risk and reward. They discovered that asset classes with greater risk profiles generated higher average returns. Building on their research, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French showed a clear relationship between market capitalization, growth rates and returns.

Hard Money Loans - Real Estate Funding Model

May 13th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Need a layman’s guide to the ins and outs of hard money loans? We’ll give the details on hard money lenders and appropriate use of these loans for real estate investing. Continue reading for the negatives and positives of the use of hard money for investment purposes.

One of the last resorts to fund your real estate deals should be a hard money loan because you are dealing with experienced investors who are on the lookout for good returns on their money which makes it amongst the most expensive money for you to borrow.

Hard money lenders are third party lenders and unlike the big institutional lenders charge interest rates above market rates. hard money lenders typically require 5-10 percentage points higher interest rates than private money or conventional lenders. Plus, hard money lenders will typically charge you “points” on a loan which is pre-paid interest thereby making this a rather expensive funding alternative.

So, on the plus side, hard money loans are generally worth approximately 65-70% of the after repair value (ARV) of the property in question. This is beneficial because it allows you to obtain the necessary cash to finance renovation costs as well as the purchase price. This means you can potentially get into a deal with little to no money down if the after repair value to cost ratio is high enough.

If you are trying to fund real estate investments and have poor credit, hard money loans are a viable option. Hard money lenders take the security of the loan into consideration and do not consider character or loan serviceability. For those who are on a strict time limit, hard money loans are also attractive since there is little to no wait time for approval.

Hard money lenders could be found in the “money to lend” section of your local newspaper most often. Next would be at a gathering of your local housing investing association. Local hard money lenders will attend every now and then to solicit new business. Also, you can find them on the net by searching for keywords like “hard money lender” or “hard money loans”.

Have you ever pondered when you should choose to borrow from hard money lenders for investing in real estate. Hard money loans will often be one of the last resorts for funding your real estate deals because you are dealing with experienced investors who are looking for good returns on their money. Third-party lender who charge interest rates higher than the prevalent market rates for lending is called an hard money lender. Another benefit of hard money lending is that instead of lending based on your creditworthiness or character, money lenders will lend based on the security of the loan.

Pine Valley Days Unify Mountain Empire Residents

May 13th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Pine Valley Homes for Sale

2007 brought a slight change in celebration of Pine Valley Days, with horse events eliminated but a fantastic time was had by all. The annual Barbeque put on by Mountain Empire Men’s Club is not only a fun family event but goes to fund scholarships for Mountain Empire High school graduates. The Parade was great with over 60 entries including floats, bands, horses and more. Out at the county park, the community ate and played themselves silly at the carnival and raffle while listening to live music. Each year members of the community volunteer to make this event a success.

Index Based Investing Updates

May 13th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

By Selwyn Gerber:

Investments

While it is impossible to completely eliminate risk, diversifying your investments should significantly reduce the total volatility of your portfolio. In building a diversified portfolio, some general rules apply. Stocks carry more risk than bonds. That’s why stocks provide better returns than bonds over the long run. It is also true that small cap stocks are more volatile than large cap stocks, because it is more likely that smaller companies will have erratic earnings or could even go out of business. This explains the greater returns available from small cap stocks. International securities involve more risk for the U.S. investor than an investment in the U.S. markets. Changes in currency, in particular the long-term decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, can have a significant impact on the returns realized by Americans investing abroad. In emerging markets, which offer the greatest potential returns, political instability is a risk factor that can not be easily quantified. For these reasons, and others, the returns from international stocks exceed the returns from U.S. stocks over the long-term.

Rip Van Winkle investing

“Over 90 percent of investment returns are determined by how investors allocate their assets versus security selection, market timing and other factors.”
- Brinson, Singer and Beebower, “Determinants of Portfolio performance II: An Update,” Financial Analysts Journal, May – June 1991

Retirement planning

The idea of risk and reward can be easily illustrated, as shown in Table 9-1. For this example, we use an S&P 500 index fund to represent stocks, and a long-term Government bond fund. We vary the allocations and find the returns for those portfolios over the test period which began in July 1991 and ran through Feb 2008.

www.revver.com/video/758305/wealth-management-tax-free-bonds-wealth-enhancement-intelligent-indexing/
www.revver.com/video/758319/stocks-tax-free-bonds-wealth-enhancement-intelligent-indexing/
www.revver.com/video/758296/equity-investing-tax-free-bonds-wealth-enhancement-intelligent-indexing/

The 50/50 mix of stocks and bonds offers the best returns with the least risk. In all cases, adding some allocation to bonds decreased risk.

Combining the different risks and rewards can lead to a portfolio where the sum is greater than the parts. While it seems counterintuitive, a 50/50 mix of bonds and stocks outperformed either investment with less risk. While the increased returns were minimal, the risk reduction was dramatic.

The lowest returns are found in a 100% bond portfolio. But risk is reduced more than returns by adding a small amount of bonds to the stock portfolio. By reducing exposure to stocks by 20%, risk is lowered by more than 15% and returns fall by less than 8%. Most investors will sleep better at night with less risk, and the peace of mind is worth the price paid in foregone returns.

The idea behind diversification is that while one asset moves down, another is likely to be moving up. The biggest problem with diversification is that it requires some work to maintain the asset allocation at the right levels. While many investors initially create a diversified portfolio, over time the performance of one asset can lead to it having too much weight in the portfolio. After performing well enough to grow in size, it is likely to underperform for a time. Unless the portfolio is periodically rebalanced, you’ll miss out on the capturing the large gains by allowing them to slip away.

Over the course of a year, or even six months, a portfolio that started out as 60% stocks and 40% bonds can easily become 50/50 if stocks decline and bonds rise, or 70% stocks and 30% bonds if stocks rise and bonds decline. Rebalancing means that you will need to periodically sell the winner and buy more of the laggard to bring the allocation back to the starting point. This captures gains and increases the investment in the part of the portfolio likely to benefit from long-term shifts in the market place. Failing to rebalance will result in the portfolio failing to maintain the desired allocation and increasing in risk.

National City Schools Offer Before and After School Programs

May 12th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

National City Homes for Sale

This school district is committed to offering a safe place for students before and afterschool for recreation, homework help and educational enrichment during working hours. The programs begin one and half hours before school starts and run until 6:00pm, Mondays-Fridays. Before school takes place in the supervised school auditorium allowing students to do homework, read and play quiet games until school starts. After school program Winners Growing Strong (WINGS) offers a whole range of academic and recreational activities, including, music, Karate, seasonal sports, art, performing arts, Golf, Ballet Folklorico, and many others. These programs are available free of charge to the parents.

Purchase a Home in the Charming City of Mesa

May 12th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

Mesa Real Estate

Mesa, AZ is conveniently located just minutes from downtown Phoenix. Major highways provide quick and easy access into the city, as well as throughout Phoenix’s greater suburban areas. An abundance of local attractions, restaurants and shopping are at your fingertips! Downtown Mesa’s Business District features a wealth of lovely shops and restaurants. Minutes away, Hohokam Park is the annual site of exciting Chicago Cubs Spring Training baseball. Visit the expansive Mesa Arts Center, and attend marvelous performing arts events. Hear great live music, or see a fantastic play! The Contemporary Arts Center displays a wide range of exhibits from talented artists. Set a tee time and play 18 holes at the Dobson Ranch Golf Course. It was voted best public course by readers of a popular local entertainment guide. Purchase a home in Mesa, and treat yourself to a fulfilling lifestyle!

Beware The Sharks When Refinancing

May 11th, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

The most important consideration in refinancing your home is your mental and financial well-being. There are many advantages of refinancing your mortgage, when it is done the correct way, and in some cases it can certainly enhance your financial situation.

You need, however, before you choose a lender for refinancing your home to ensure that you get accurate, reliable and unbiased home refinancing tips.

The problem is that you really need unbiased home refinancing tips to help you make your decision. You need to understand the pitfalls, as well as the advantages of refinancing your mortgage.

When you are looking for advice on refinancing, it is important to consider the source of the information. Mortgage lenders and brokers have a vested interest in pointing out the advantages of refinancing your mortgage, because they can only make commissions when you agree to refinancing your mortgage.

The subprime mortgage crisis had brought to light some of the more questionable practices of the mortgage industry, with unwitting home-owners convinced to take out mortgages they couldn’t really afford.

We have a long way to go with the sorting-out after the long boom - unsafe lending practices were not apparent while property prices continued to rise.

Now the actions of the past are beginning to cause problems, with the cutely-named “Mortgage Lenders Implode” site (ml-implode.com) listing over 250 lenders who have “imploded” already. The site defines “imploded” as: The “imploded” status is somewhat subjective and does not necessarily mean operations are ceased permanently: it can mean bankruptcy filing, temporary but open-ended halting of major operations, or a “firesale” acquisition. The Companies include all types (prime, subprime, or a mix of both; retail or wholesale; subsidiaries and entire companies).

if you don’t want to be caught up in the drama, or if you are already caught up and you want to get out of trouble by refinancing your home, then you need to make sure you get the right home refinancing tips. Find independent sites which can offer you unbiased advice on refinancing, rather than relying on home refinancing tips provided by someone with a vested interest in selling you a home loan.

There are definitely advantages of refinancing your mortgage, if you do it the right way. You just need to make sure that refinancing your home is in your best interests, and that you are getting the best available deal on refinancing your home.

Ask lots of questions, don’t be rushed into signing anything, and be sure you understand what your new mortgage will cost you, not just immediately, but also if the payments are going to change at some time in the future, or if there will be a balloon payment due.

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