house

Best Way To Take Equity Out of Your House

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home equity refinance

One of the most frustrating things during my years as a financial planner was the number of people who insisted on paying their mortgage off early or adding extra principal to their mortgage payments and then, years later (or not) wanting to know the best way to take equity out of your house. Grrrr!!! If you’re not going to listen to me about the best place to invest extra money, or if you ended up with a ton of equity in your home thanks to rising home prices, or just living there for a decade or more, then listen to me now about the best way to take money out of your home equity. Take Money Out of Your Home’s Equity by Refinancing Usually, taking money out of your home equity by refinancing is dumb. However, with interest rates at historical lows, and lenders competing with each other, it is possible to take equity out of your home, lower your interest rate, and pay lower expenses, all without sticking you with a big loan that you have to pay back. Here is how it works. Let’s say you owe $300,000 on a house worth $500,000. You have $200,000 in equity. …

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House Poor Family Trades in For RV

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house-poor-rv

While this isn’t my usual fare, this recent article on CNBC struck a chord with me, and not necessarily in a good way. Not a bad way either, but… odd? This article details the troubles of a family that had a $4,200 per month mortgage on their home in California. Couple that with a paragraph about $110,000 in student loans, and you’ve got yourself a clickbait ready, shareable personal finance article. Here is the weird part. The article, as all of these articles do, leaves out a lot of the details that likely make this a one-off article that isn’t shareable, or doable by pretty much anyone. For example, there was a months-long road trip that has now lasted over a year. That’s cool. Where does son Aiden (8) go to school? There’s also the part about how it “helps” that neither parent had traditional 9 to 5 jobs. You mean, it’s absolutely essential that they don’t have 9 to 5 jobs, or at least that they can be full-time remote. Lastly, while living in an RV cut their living expenses from that $4,200 mortgage, the RV that they make this lifestyle work in was apparently gifted after the initial …

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Right Homeowners Insurance Deductible

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Most property insurance works the same way. Therefore, if you understand your auto insurance, you understand a lot about your homeowners insurance, or house insurance. The basic moving parts of a homeowners policy are much the same as car insurance. There is a property insurance part in case something happens to your home, which is like the comprehensive or collision insurance part of your car insurance. There is a liability insurance component much like the liability part of your auto insurance. There is a premium that you have to pay in order to keep your coverage in both types of policies. And, finally, both types of insurance have a deductible, or an amount that you have to pay before your insurance kicks in. Understanding Homeowners Insurance Policies There is a thing about home insurance that some people don’t know. Insurance companies can sometimes cancel homeowners policies if there are too many claims filed for the insured property. In some cases, it only takes two or three claims over the years to get cancelled. And, almost all homeowners insurance claims lead to higher rates. Even worse, when you apply for insurance with a new company, one of the first questions is …

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