If you are shopping for student loans and figure you might need to have your parents cosign the loan, you parents should understand the risks of signing for that loan. If you fail to make a payment on the student loan, you know that your credit history and credit score will suffer. But your parents' credit history and credit score will suffer as well.
If you have paid off your mortgage in full, the holder of the note should return to you the note as "paid in full," should return to you the original mortgage marked "canceled," and should send you a document to record in the local office that records or files documents against your property to note that the lien on your home has been paid in full and released.
For some people, this is the worst time to be in the real estate market to buy or sell a home. Others believe, this is a great time to buy properties. In this review of Christine Hrib Karpinski's book "How To Rent Vacation Properties By Owner," she discusses the best way to approach buying a vacation rental property. There is a strategy that you should follow to buy a vacation property that you would want to rent most or all of the time. Karpinski is the director ow owner community for HomeAway, Inc. So follow a formula and make sure you understand the market and the risks of buying a vacation rental property.
If you have substantial credit card debt, you might want to pay down some of that debt before applying for a mortgage to buy a house. The home buying experience can be trying enough, but if you have too much debt on your hands, you might not qualify for a mortgage. You may assume that you should do everything to pay down that credit card debt even if it means using retirement funds to do that. You might be wrong. Using your retirement funds should probably be your last resort when dealing with debt problems.
Even in this down real estate market, homes are selling. If you have owned your home for some time, you may find that you may have a hefty profit on the sale of your home. If you have a profit, you might expect to pay the IRS taxes on the sale of the home. But those taxes can be limited by the $250,000 exclusion given to individuals and $500,000 exclusion given to married couples on the sale of their principal residence. Certain IRS rules apply to avoid having to pay the tax, so be careful and make sure you qualify.
If you have the ability to make life easier for your children, wouldn't you? If you can, you should hire an estate planner or at a minimum have a will and living trust to assist your family in transferring assets to them after you die. If your children have different incomes and savings and you are going to divide your estate differently, make sure you spell that out in your documents. And, if you have a home and one of your children lives with you in that home, make sure you consider what should be done with the home upon your death.
Wouldn't it be great if you had no debt? And if you had no debt and had money to invest, where would you put it? Leave your comment below on your advice as to where you would invest your money if you had no debt. Would you invest in the stock market, bonds or put the money into a retirement account like a 401k? Some people might even invest the money in a tax free annuity. But if you are self employed, you may have additional options available to you.
At some point, part of a wise estate plan is having someone hold a power of attorney for your financial matters. If you are incapacitated or otherwise unable to handle your affairs, you might want to have a back-up plan. When a parent comes to the realization that they should give a power of attorney, they will usually select one or several of his or her children to have that power. Along with that power of attorney, the parent should also have instructions as to what the child should do with the power of attorney, particularly if there are many siblings and there can be issues between the kids.
We all want a perfect credit score, but very few of us have one. However, a high credit score means that you may have an easier time applying for a loan, getting a credit card or getting better terms on loans and credit cards. But some companies now use credit scores and your credit history to determine whether you should be hired for a job. A high credit score will mean that you will have an easier time in your business and personal finances.
When money is tight, senior citizens frequently look to the equity in their home for a solution. One way to tap into that equity is for a senior citizen to obtain a reverse mortgage. Reverse mortgages allow a person to obtain a monthly payment for the rest of the time they live in the home or allows them to take out a lump sum payment at one time. Before you consider a reverse mortgage, make sure you understand what it will cost to obtain the loan. Even if you are told that the costs will be put into the loan amount and you won't have to pay anything out of pocket, you still need to know what those costs are. If you don't understand the fees involved in obtaining a reverse mortgage, you will be surprised later on or your family members will be in for a surprise when you sell the home or are no longer around.
