Technically, The Fed’s decision in July to lower interest rates by a quarter-point doesn’t directly affect mortgages. In reality, there are usually some things to keep in mind with any rate decrease or increase.
The Federal Funds rate is a measure of short-term borrowing, or the rate that banks use to lend money to each other. Mortgages are long-term notes.
If you have an adjustable-rate mortgage, you’ll probably see your interest rate go down when there’s a cut. To put that in perspective, a Bankrate article said that a HELOC (home equity line of credit) of $100,000 rises or falls about $250 a year with every change of 0.25 percent in interest rate, up or down. That works out to about $21 a month.
Additionally, variable-rate mortgages usually adjust annually, on their anniversary dates, and some don’t adjust at all for the first two to seven years.
However, this could be a good time to refinance into a fixed-rate mortgage and lock in the historically low rates. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage fell to 3.75 percent, down from a high of almost 5 percent in 2018.
Do a little math to figure out your savings over time, as well as closing costs, to determine whether this is a good move for you.
Is flood insurance part of regular homeowners insurance?
Cypress, TX has seen its share of flooding in recent times, and there is always a possibility there could be another natural disaster in the area. Unfortunately for homeowners who did not have flood insurance during the last flooding, this is not something that is covered in a standard homeowner’s policy.
Before you decide to purchase flood insurance, you need to understand the risk in your area and what kind of protection exists. At InsureUS, we can help you assess your future risks look through your options.
Do you live in a flood zone?
If you live in a designated flood zone, you will need to purchase flood insurance to even get a mortgage. Even if you aren’t close to a body of water, there could be other problems like drainage issues that make your area a flood zone.
Replacement cost or actual cash value?
When choosing a policy, you will need to decide how much insurance you need. That will be based on the value of your home and possessions, but you can also choose a policy that will rebuild your home as it was instead of just offering you the current market value.
Don’t wait
If you do experience flooding, your policy already needs to be in place. There is a 30-day period after you purchase flood insurance before it goes into effect.
Whether you own or rent your home in Cypress, TX, your standard homeowners or renters insurance will not protect you in case of flooding. You will need to have a policy that specifically covers your home during a flood. If you are interested in purchasing flood insurance, or if you just have any questions about it, please feel free to call InsureUS today.
Hot trend: Build to rent
An interesting real estate trend has cropped up in recent years: while demand for rents has stayed strong, consumers have also turned their attention to single-family homes.
Renting is like having a home without the commitment. Or living in a home but retaining the agility to up and move quickly.
As prices of single-family homes have risen and lending remains strict, down payments and loans have become harder to come by. Add in Millennials, a generation of buyers with sometimes staggering student loan debt but growing families, or Baby Boomers, who don’t want the headaches involved with homeownership.
Flexibility and mobility have become the driving force.
Now, builders and investors are building single-family homes with the intent to rent instead of sell. In one of the bigger moves nationwide, Toll Brothers announced earlier this year that it had committed to invest $60 million in a $400 million venture that would build homes for rent in seven major U.S. cities.
An article in CNBC this summer called the built-to-rent (or B2R), the fastest-growing trend in real estate. Last year, about 43,000 single-family homes were built for rent, it said. And the built-for-rent share of housing starts is also rising, to nearly double its recent historical average from 1992-2012.
In Pradera, a gated community of three- and four-bedroom homes in San Antonio, Texas, the rents are $1,800 to $2,300 a month and the community includes a pool, fitness center, community kitchen and party space, plus dog park and dog-washing station. Interestingly, the average annual household income in Pradera is more than $100,000 — meaning many of the tenants can afford to buy but have chosen not to.
Wage and hourly lawsuits: Easy to file, devastating to lose
As a small business owner, are you 100 percent sure you’re paying employees correctly? Are you tracking their hours accurately? Are those you’ve classified as exempt really doing the work that qualifies them for it?
If not, take a sharp eye to your payment system very soon.
In the last few years, numerous small businesses have been hit by lawsuits citing them for underpaying or misclassifying employees, failure to pay required wages, and sufficient overtime.
And the smaller the company, the higher the risk.
Also, the threat to unprepared employers will increase early next year when a rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor takes effect. In its current form, the law would make an estimated one million more workers eligible for overtime pay.
Any vulnerabilities in a business’ payment system are red meat for plaintiff lawyers who appear to be getting more successful in their pursuits. They won 79 percent of 273 wage-and-hour certification decisions in 2018, an increase of six percent over the previous year.
Companies also absorbed a decrease of 11 percent in their odds of defeating cases with successful decertification motions.
Even more foreboding is the lone discontented employee who could hire a plaintiff attorney who then could parlay the case into a class-action lawsuit that would be very expensive for any company to fight.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, wage and hour disputes are cash cows for plaintiff attorneys: Their fees are easier to obtain than in other forms of commercial litigation.
To protect your business–and ultimately you and your family–make sure that all your workers (contractors, staff, overtime-exempt, and non-exempt) are classified correctly, and that they are being paid according to federal and state laws.
Also, seriously consider proposing an arbitration agreement with your employees that includes a class-action waiver.
Entrepreneur Michael Rubin: Bankrupt at 16, Millionaire at 21, Billionaire at 38
At the age of 16, Michael Rubin said there are only two kinds of business people: Those who take risks, and those who are rational.
What was he?
At 16, is it risky to own a snow-ski business in Pennsylvania’s sweltering summers while owing creditors more than $200,000?
At 21, is it rational to own a business worth $1 million, and $50 million a couple of years later?
According to Rubin, being $200,000 in debt was “a near-to-death” encounter.
Somehow, someway, he managed to pacify his creditors with the $37,000 he borrowed from his father. Then, honoring his Dad’s terms of the deal, he enrolled in college.
Six weeks later, he dropped out of Villanova University. Too boring, he said, answering the calls of his businesses.
Working smart had inspired Rubin since he was a kid.
At the age of eight, according to Enrepreneur.com, he was walking door-to-door selling vegetable seeds to his West Philadelphia neighbors. At 12, he’d opened Mike’s Ski Shop in the basement of his parents’ home.
At 14, he was operating a chain of ski shops, businesses, and a discount ski equipment retail shop (hence, the debt).
At 19, he had merged his burgeoning ski business, KPR Sports (named with his parents’ initials), with then publicly-traded athletic shoe company Ryka to form Global Sports Inc. (later GSI Commerce).
At 26, GSI was generating more than $130 million a year.
At 38, Rubin had sold GSI Commerce to eBay for $2.4 billion.
Rubin then bought and merged Fanatics (a licensed apparel retailer), Rue La La (a fashion flash site seller), and Shop Runner (a retail benefits program) and molded them into Kynetic, a billion-dollar e-commerce company.
Rubin is 47 now, and according to Forbes, his net worth is $3 billion.
Reasons Retiring to an RV is a Great Choice
If you live in Cypress, TX and have already just retired or retirement is right around the corner, you may be struggling with deciding where you want to retire. The quick and easy solution is to consider retiring to an RV. Spending your retirement in an RV means you go visit all those places you promised yourself you would visit after retiring, you can visit the grandkids anytime and you park your home near a beach during the winter. If you have been thinking about retiring to an RV, but aren’t sure if it’s good choice, InsureUs has put together a few of the benefits that come with RV living.
Save Money
One of the best benefits of retiring to an RV is that you will save money. There are campgrounds throughout the United States that offer special discounts to seniors and for those who choose to park in the campground during the off-season. You will no longer need to pay a high mortgage or expensive rent, you’ll need to ensure the RV, but you can drop your homeowner’s insurance and most campgrounds offer free WiFi and activities, so you’ll save money on bills as well as entertainment.
Downsizing
Retiring to an RV means you can significantly reduce the amount of stuff you have. Living in a traditional home means you typically have much more stuff than you really need, for instance, do you really need six skillets? Living in an RV means you can eliminate the clutter in your home and your life. It may take a minute to get used to living with only what you need, but in time, your life will be much happier. The less clutter there is your life, the freer you will feel, which means you will have the desire to get out, be adventurous and enjoy your retirement.
Make New Friends
All that traveling means you will be interacting with more people and if you tend to park in a campground that is senior-oriented, you will be amazed at how many people you meet that enjoy the same things as you. Many campgrounds offer a “get together” for their residents as well, which means you’ll have even more opportunities to develop lasting friendships with people.
These are only a few of the benefits that come with RV retiring. If you aren’t sure if it’s the best lifestyle for you, consider renting an RV for a few weeks to give it a try.
Residents of Cypress, TX that are interested in learning more about insuring their RV should contact InsureUs.
Frequent flyer plans can save on travel
It’s easy to sign up for and use airline frequent flyer miles, but whether you will save money on travel depends, in part, on how much you travel.
A good rule of thumb is if you are expecting to make some major trips (or lots of small trips) in the next 18 months, frequent flyer miles might be the ticket to free air fare. But if you are not going to travel regularly, the miles might not do much good. Those miles (or points) usually expire over time.
Here is a primer on signing up for frequent flyer programs:
* Decide which airlines have a hub near you. These will be the airlines you will probably use most.
* Go to the airline’s website and sign up for its frequent flyer program.
* Book your next trip through the airline and give them your frequent flyer program number.
* When you have enough points, book a flight through the airline and the points will be credited to the cost of the ticket if you choose to use them.
You can also add up more points by using credit cards associated with the program. For example, American Airlines has two cards associated with their program and, with a substantial purchase on the card, you can get thousands of points. You can also get points for dining and shopping. Most programs offer a shopping portal to stores such as Target. If you are planning to buy something from Target, use the airline shopping portal and you get points.
One point is equal to about 1.3 to 1.4 cents, depending on the program.
The most common types of college scholarships
In 2018’s college graduation class, nearly 70 percent of students took out student loans, and their average debt was close to $30,000 each, according to Student Loan Hero.
In addition, 14 percent of their parents also took out an average of $35,600 in Parent PLUS loans to help support them.
With those alarming figures in mind, if you don’t want debt, scholarships are a must.
Academics should start the scholarship hunt. Academic scholarships usually have larger payouts and can even cover the entire amount of tuition for a four-year degree. These require not just a high GPA, but also participation in extracurricular activities.
According to the MarketWatch, about six percent of all high school athletes will compete at the college level and there is $3 billion in aid available across Division I and II schools. Gymnastics, fencing, and ice hockey have the lowest ratio of high school athletes to college scholarships, while volleyball has the highest. Football, the sport with the highest total number of scholarships available at 25,918, ranks fourth on the list.
Service-based awards can be a great way to get extra money.
Local churches, civic groups, and businesses often offer this kind of scholarship to students active in their communities. If your child frequently donates their time doing something like tutoring or spending time with the elderly, there is likely a scholarship somewhere to reward them for their service.
Even if it’s not cash, the Federal Work-Study Program can help students pay for college by providing a part-time job during college.
The simple life: Minimalists shun excess
Recently, a woman showed up in the conference room of a Midwestern bank wearing a T-shirt. She was 93 years old and had driven an old stick-shift car to the meeting.
She was a minimalist, and her net worth was $2.4 million.
Minimalism gets a lot of attention today. It’s all about living with less. Minimal or no debt. No unnecessary expenses. No excess stuff.
Pick an item you own. Any item. Have you used it in the last three months? If not, will you in the next three?
Look around your home. Do you really need that extra square footage? How much money could you save without heating and cooling it?
Minimalism is a theory rooted in the value of experiences over possessions. Quality over quantity may be a cliche, but it is a tenet in minimalism.
To live a minimalist life, you don’t have to get rid of everything you own but the essentials. By asking yourself, “Does this thing bring meaning to my life?”, you can pick and choose what’s right for you.
Getting rid of a few needless possessions, for example, in exchange for a hobby.
According to moneyunder30.com, living by a few minimalist philosophies can do wonders for an individual’s or couple’s finances.
Use one credit card (preferably one that offers rewards). Have one checking account, and one savings account for cash emergencies.
Don’t try to live up to another minimalist’s standards, advises medium.com. Respond to your own emotions, desires, needs, and goals. Educate yourself about minimalism. Do what serves you, rid yourself of what doesn’t. Allow yourself to evolve and to make changes. Once you know what you want, it’s easier to be a minimalist.
Four different money pros for different needs
Sometimes navigating financial issues seems impossible. Here are four situations that might require a money pro.
In debt and in trouble
This problem requires credit counselors. They can help build a plan to get out of debt, give information about bankruptcy, or even completely manage money, giving clients an allowance to live on, according to creditcards.com.
Find one at National Foundation for Credit Counseling or Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies.
When you need help managing assets
A Certified Financial Planner (CFP) can help manage assets built up over the years or from windfalls. They offer advice on insurance and investments for retirement, and help plan financial goals. Search for a CFP in your area and find one you trust.
Just ready to retire? Now what?
A retirement planner, usually a CFP specializing in retirement, can give you an idea of the money you will need in retirement and ideas on how to manage it.
It’s a good idea to consult a retirement planner about 10 years before you retire, but you can get good advice even on the verge of retirement.
Check out FPAnet.org for suggestions.
Can’t make ends meet
A budget counselor helps those who maybe don’t need a full-scale debt repayment plan. Budget counselors are best for those who make enough money but can’t seem to live within their means. They might have some credit card debt, which may even be manageable, but they are building debt.
