Archive for November, 2006

Sanding a Floor

Saturday, November 18th, 2006

No, this post is not about Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita in the Karate Kid. My wife and I recently bought a house and we are closing next Friday. We plan on moving in the Friday after we close on the house. In the interim week we have hired a contractor who specializes in sanding and varnishing the hardwood floors (prior owner had a dog and many kids). They will take the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving to sand the floors down so the sacratches and wear no longer are present and then put two (from what I am told never have only one coat because it will not last nearly as long) coats of varnish on. They are only doing the upstairs hardwood because the kitchen and dining room need it as well, but we plan on putting innnew cabinets and countertops in the kitchen in the next few months.

Hopefully, this will be a painless process and we can quickly move on to our next projects we need to complete.

Retirement Account Company Switch

Friday, November 17th, 2006

My wife and I are moving to a new home and once that is complete and we are settled I think I am going to switch my IRA and Roth IRA to Scottrade. I have read up on it and it seems like the “No fees” policy, customer service and cost seem like bonuses to me. I am currently with TD Ameritrade and I am not unhappy, it seems like $20 a trade in my retirement accounts is a lot to pay. Plus I do not seem to benefit from it–it really does not bring anything to the table for me.

Dow 30 Stocks Hit New High

Thursday, November 16th, 2006

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit another high on Wednesday. The market well to the The Fed and more investors are confident that inflation is under
control. The Dow 30 stocks have continued to hit highs
after breaking through to an all-time-high a few
weeks back. It was a long road for the stock market from
the recession in March of 2000 followed by 9/11. It
goesto show how resilient the U.S. stock market and
economy really are, especially when compared to
other nations.

Can this prosperity in the stock market, especially the Dow 30 Stocks continue? Well, for the past 6 months it has been strong and rarely has show signs of slowing down.

Home Loans: Fixed Rate versus Adjustable ARMs

Wednesday, November 15th, 2006

Fixed-Rate Mortgage
You can determine exactly how much you’re going to pay each month for the next 30 years. As you earn more money over the years the payments become a lower percentage of your debt. However, you will pay more for this peace of mind compared to an ARM.
Adjustable-Rate Mortgage
The rates are lower than a fixed rate mortgage so you can afford more, but this caqn work against you as it has for thousands of Americans that are seeing their monthly payments go up 50% because of rate hikes.
While the ARMs are sexier they can really cause some serious worry because of the volatility. I would not recommend getting an ARM loan except a few instances and those are rare.

Stock AAPL

Tuesday, November 14th, 2006

As you probably know the introduction and success of the ubiquitous ipod has revived Apple (AAPL) stock. Several months back I was considering buying stock in AAPL, however I was scared away from its high P/E ratio. Since then AAPL stock has gone from the mid-$60 range to the low-$80 range–my mistake. Although its P/E has shrunk, AAPL is nearing its 52-week high so if you had invested in AAPL stock you might want to consider taking some gains off the table. Another potential problem for the stock is that ipod sales cannot sustain such levels forever and if this Christmas Apple has not come up with the-next-best-thing expections for the stocks’ earning will dimish and AAPL could decrease quickly if poor earnings are annouced for Q4.

How to Buy a House?, Part 7

Monday, November 13th, 2006

Wednesday of this week I was getting very nervous about us securing a mortgage loan on time to keep in line with our contractional agreement. It literally got done that last day possible about 45 minutes before the end of the business day. The appraisal was the main issue because the sellers’ real estate agent screwed up–the first appraiser that came to appraise the house was turned away because they said we already had an appraisal. This is true, but we changed mortgage lenders and they had to do their own appraisal.

Things have calmed down a lot the last couple days. We have all the information in order to wire the down payment money to an escrow account at the title company. We plan on doing it a couple days before the closing so there are no surprises.

This week we settled with the sellers on the repairs that need to be done. They are giving us a credit to get the electric panel and circuit breakers fixed.

We have agreed on a closing time and place and are in the process of setting the final walk-through time. Now we have one week to go before we own our first house.

Moving from Apartment to House

Sunday, November 12th, 2006

We are moving about 25 miles west of where we currently live. We have a relatively large apartment and a decent amount of belongings to move. I have moved so many times in my life I decided this time we need to get movers. Fortunately, family members had recently done almost the same move so they recommended a mom-and-pop moving company for us to use. They are inexpensive and I think the process will be so much easier than if we did it ourselves. Plus we can write off our moving expenses on our taxes so it will cost even less in the long run.

The movers arrive the Friday after Thanksgiving at about 10am and I hope to be completely finished by late afternoon. Here’s hoping.

Social Security

Saturday, November 11th, 2006

Social Security was a hot topic as the Bush administration pushed for reform in 2005 with little luck.

The U.S. government has announced the amounts recipients will get in social security will rise 3.3% for 2007. This is a smaller gain than in 2006 and it seems even smaller when you see that inflation wipes out that gain and more.checks for nearly 49 million Americans are going up by 3.3% in 2007, a smaller percentage gain than this year, the government announced Wednesday.

49 million Americans receive social security and on an average their payments will rise $33 a month to $1,044 a month as a total average payment.

While it seems like peanuts this obviously has an impact on the U.S. budget and will bring into question–again–this issue of reform.

Even More Real Estate Websites

Friday, November 10th, 2006

Here are some more websites to raise your level of real estate knowledge.

  1. Trulia.com Nationwide listing of homes on the market. Gives you school information, crime rates and city information.
  2. Propertyshark.com Foreclosure home listings, tax maps, zoning data, and demographics. Covers only selected states right now.
  3. HomePages.com Gives you the low down on the area including restaurants, parks, schools and governemtn offices.

More Real Estate Websites

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

Before we discussed the aspects of the real estate website Zillow. Here we will discuss some other popular real estate sites that can help you with buying and selling

Realtybaron.com is similar to the idea behind Lendingtree.com. You place your property up and realtors bid for your business.

Ziprealty.com Takes the aspects of banking online to realty. Here because there are no bricks and mortar you are allowed to save on commissions when selling and getting cash when buying.

Owners.com This site helps you sell your house (which many are trying hard to do right now) by going through online listings as a classified ad.

Redfin.com Similar to ziprealty in that it gives money back to buyers and then charges a flat $2,000 fee to sellers. Business is done online.