I ran across the question posed in the headline of this article – What’s the ultimate passive income business? – while browsing an online forum the other day and it was fascinating to see how different people answered the query. How would you answer? I think almost all ambitious people search for passive income (income where you don’t have to do much or any work to bring it in) at one time or another during their lives. Sometimes it seems like an impossible dream and people just give up on the idea. Before I go any further, let me say that unless you’re...
To understand how hard money loans help Los Angeles, Orange County and California real estate buyers and investors, it’s a good idea to start out with some common situations that families and individuals in the Golden State find themselves in. So let’s describe a few scenarios. The self-employed Scenario #1: A small business owner has put together money for a down payment and has decided it’s time to stop throwing money away on rent and start building equity and a financial future for his family. He has found a property in Los Angeles that looks perfect. He...
Let me toss out three names and see if you can tell me what connects them: – Josh Altman – Josh Flagg – Madison Hildebrand No, these aren’t the alumni of some one-hit-wonder boy band; they’re the stars of BravoTV’s reality series, “Million Dollar Listing.” That question may have been a little unfair, but I think you’ll ace my next question: – Where is the setting for “Million Dollar Listing”? Right, it’s set in the world of Los Angeles real estate. Here’s how Bravo describes the show: “Million Dollar Listing” follows the lives of three of...
It was the first half of October, a time when financial institutions that handle 401(k) plan send out quarterly reports. A friend received one of these in the mail. It was from a 401(k) plan he had with a previous employer. After leaving that job, he didn’t do anything with the plan. He just let it sit there rather than rolling it over into an account that he could have more control over. He didn’t think he was taking any risk. After all, the money was in a mutual fund designed to parallel one of the major stock market indexes. But when he opened the envelope...
Exactly how stable are our markets and monetary policy? Let’s illustrate it this way, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen was feeling so poorly while making a speech on monetary policy and inflation at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst recently that she had to quit in the middle and get medical attention. I think her condition that evening fairly well reflects current markets and monetary policy: they’re shaky. Fortunately, Yellen bounced back very quickly and was soon making all the other appointments on her busy schedule. However, in her abbreviated speech,...
