If one of our big-time Hollywood script writers penned this story, it would get a name like, “The Case of the Missing Money.” The money in this mystery story isn’t the inheritance of some rich oil tycoon. What is missing is the economic growth our economy should have seen in the first quarter of this year. Experts were expecting almost 2 percent growth, but when the numbers came in, there was essentially no growth. It was such a surprise that the government, according to an Associated Press article, has decided to “review the mystery” of the slow-to-no first...
If you’ve been turned down by a bank or conventional lender for a loan to buy or refinance real estate, you’ve probably asked some questions like these: – “Why won’t the bank lend to me?” – “What can I do now that my loan application has been turned down?” – “How can I get a loan after the bank rejected me?” – “How can I improve my credit rating?” These are common questions that thousands of people have found themselves asking during the last several years, and it’s not just people who want to buy or refinance real estate. Small business...
“If you have saved enough to afford a comfortable retirement, congratulations. You’re in a tiny minority.” That’s the way an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the current state of retirement preparedness starts. The article touches on a variety of common retirement investments – more on those in a moment – but it doesn’t include the strategy that many in our area are discovering: hard money loans on Los Angeles and other California properties. Most individuals think in terms of “savings” when they consider retirement planning. Further, we start to get...
We all like to feel as if we’re in control of our lives, whether it’s our personal lives or our professional lives. One important area where those two intersect is in our financial lives. To be able to keep our personal lives headed in the right direction, we need to exert strong control over our finances, and very often those financial resources are created by our professional lives. While so many investment vehicles seem to be careening out of control today – traditional security investments especially – many forward thinking and savvy investors are turning to...
