Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Understatement: People nearing retirement have had good reason to be concerned in the last few weeks.
Our friend who likes to check on his stocks everyday has suddenly developed other interests. And who wouldn't blame him. It's no fund getting whipsawed - down in the depths one day, brought back to euphoria the next - only to have all hope snuffed out the following morning. Better to take up macrame.
Which leads so many folks to wondering what is a safe investment these days. Precious metals were red hot last week - for a while. Ditto for commodities. Stocks - only the bravest went there. Even staid money market funds, last refuge for the faint of heart, took big hits with net outflows of $173 billion for the week. The Primary Fund "broke the buck" - going below a net asset value of $1. Fortunately the Treasury Department announced a new insurance program like the FDIC for money market funds, helping bring stability back to that market.
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Published on September 24, 2008
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Category: Green Retirement Communities
A study from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) shows that the energy crisis is producing big shifts in what consumers are looking for in new homes. In as short a period of 2007 to 2008, buyer interest in common features like mudrooms, home offices, game rooms, and home workshops…
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Published on September 17, 2008
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Category: General Retirement Issues
Thought our Topretirements visitors might be interested in a blog post published today on Murderati - an very popular murder mystery blog. The angle is that my wife, Roberta Isleib, just published her 8th mystery last week. So she is not only on the tour promoting it, but she dragged me and Topretirements in on the fun. Here is an excerpt (full story at Murderati)
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John: Tip #1 -- Find a way to be interactive with your audience. My team at BLR came up with the idea of an interactive quiz for Human Resource professionals, the HR Challenge, which tested their knowledge about different HR questions. We all knew it would be a good idea, but were blown away when the website got so much traffic it overwhelmed the server. We ended up having to shut it down for 6 months and rebuild the site so it could handle the traffic. Think about questions or contests that get people involved in your story.
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Published on September 15, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
It is one of our favorite recommendations – if you want to get a good deal in retirement real estate, stay away from the coasts. The 2008 Coldwell Banker Home Price Comparison Index provides a pretty good illustration of the theory. The real estate brokerage firm makes an annual comparison…
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Published on September 10, 2008
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Category: Baby Boomer Retirement Issues
Looking over the handlebars at 6 lanes of busy traffic that bars the way to your daily destination, you might wish you had done your bike-friendly research a little better. Fortunately that’s a lot easier in some parts of the country, because believe it or not, according to the…
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Published on September 3, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
If this headline about seller's remorse strikes you as a little bit of a non-sequitur, you wouldn't be alone. With the turmoil in South Florida's active adult and real estate market, you would think we should be talking about "buyer's remorse". That's the affliction that comes when people who bought a few years ago are under water with their mortgage - they owe more than what their home is worth.
Rafael Diaz could tell you all about it. Two years ago this Miami builder listed a brand new home near the University of Miami for $979,000. Today's listing price - $599,000. What's worse is that he turned down an offer of $770,000 just a year ago. What he told the New York Times says a lot of sellers remorse, "I should have taken it. ... I guess I was a little cocky...."
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Published on September 3, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
Want to know how much you will receive from Social Security when you retire? How much will your check will be if you start taking benefits at 62, 66, or "full" retirement age (70). The Social Security Administration has just unleashed a powerful tool, The Retirement Estimator, that will give you these figures in less than a minute.
It's a great retirement calculator that has many uses. We've been doing some work with retirees lately and it is truly sad to see how many people are not financially prepared.
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Published on August 19, 2008
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Category: Active adult communities
August 6 -- We are constantly on the lookout for the best places to retire. And it's fun to write about a place so nice that it gives you the itch to move there.
A more difficult problem emerges when we try to seek out the best active adult communities. Many people want to live in these self-contained worlds (and yes, many won't go near them too!). But when we get excited about an active adult community that sounds just great - the other shoe drops when we find out where it is. Yep, 9 times out of 10 it is in some little town that no one has ever heard of, way out in the boondocks.
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Published on August 6, 2008
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
July 28 -- Are you the type of person who has a certain "magic number" in mind? The magic number being the amount of savings you think you need to quit the working world and retire. It's always been an interesting exercise, with the problem that all too often these numbers tend to be unscientific, often relying on shaky assumptions about spending and income.
Finding the magic number is an essential step in every baby boomer's preparations for a worry-free retirement. Nowadays there are any number of retirement calculators available on the internet. These nifty web pages take the mystery out of the process.
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Published on July 28, 2008
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Category: Green Retirement Communities
July 22 -- If there is one "cool" trend in home building today, it is going green. A number of factors have come together to make the green (environmentally sustainable) movement the potential saving grace of struggling home builders across the world. In fact, a McGraw-Hill Construction/National Association of Home Builders study predicts that "The market for green housing will grow to from as little as $12 billion this year to between $40B and $70B by 2012.”
Obviously the high price of oil is factor number 1. With oil prices skyrocketing, residential buildings, which account for 21% of U.S. energy consumption (source: U.S. Energy Information Administration), are an easy target for money-saving ideas.
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Published on July 22, 2008
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