Power Tools of Savvy Homeowners (by David Newby)

I would like to share an article written by a great friend of mine - David Newby. Note that David Newby welcomes interviews.

Power Tools of Savvy Homeowners (by David Newby)

For centuries, the prevailing wisdom regarding your home mortgage has been to “pay it off as soon as possible.”  With 9 out of 10 Americans retiring broke in the richest country on Earth, it may be time to rethink that strategy.  Here are 3 Reasons you should consider mortgaging your house to the hilt if you want to have a comfortable retirement.

Reason #1- Safety.  Home equity isn’t always safe.  Hurricane Katrina taught us this lesson very vividly with thousands of homeowners being paid less than their homes were worth by their insurance companies.  You may trust your insurance company to pay you what your home is worth in case something happens to it, but why take the chance?  At your current saving rate, how many years would it take you to replace $30,000 or $50,000 of lost equity?  Another experience that can “steal” your home equity is a real estate slump.  If your equity is taken out of your property, you can use it even in a down market.  Plus you can use your equity to earn you more money.  More on that in Reason #3.

Reason #2- Access.  Your home equity is your money.  You should always have access to it, even when you don’t need it.  Everyone runs into a financial emergency from time to time, and if you wait until you need to get access to your home equity (in case of job loss or other emergency) you can’t get it!  In the Katrina example above, if a natural disaster hit your house you could use the liquid equity to simply move to another house.  This is a much more appealing alternative than waiting 3-6 months or up to a year to get YOUR OWN MONEY paid to you by your homeowners’ insurance policy.  Have access to your home equity even if you don’t need it at the moment. *don’t get a Home Equity Line of Credit unless it’s one that can be converted to a second mortgage at your discretion.  It looks like a credit card on your personal credit report, and when you use more than half of the available money your credit score will drop quickly.

Reason #3- Return on Investment.  Let me ask you a question: if I offered you an investment that earns 0%/yr. interest, that you have to contribute to every month, and that you have to ask permission to get out of, would you invest in that investment?  If you answered no, then you basically just said you don’t believe in paying your house off.  That precisely describes home equity- it earns 0% and you have to ask the bank for permission to use it if you’re paying your house off.  Whether a home appreciates or not has to do with the real estate market it is in; it has nothing to do with whether you’re paying it off or not.  As such, you should refinance your house to 100% if possible with an interest only loan and invest your equity prudently at an attractive rate of return.

Where to invest your equity?  There are several options, and it depends on how willing you are to exercise your “risk muscle.”  I have clients who routinely earn anywhere from 9% up to 18% or more on their home equity.  This simply “repositioning” of home equity can put an extra $1 million in your pocket over your lifetime, and give you greater safety and access to your own money along the way.  Don’t be overwhelmed by this concept.  If you’re paying your house off or it’s paid off now, seriously consider mortgaging your house to the hilt with an interest only loan tomorrow.

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Learn outside-the-box strategies that the wealthy

use and that your CPA and financial planner

likely don’t even know in David Newby’s book “Why

Didn’t Anyone Teach Me This?” at

http://www.FinancialPlanning202.com

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“VA” comes in many Hats

If you are not familiar with the term “VA”, and no it is not Virginia USA, but rather it means Virtual Assistant. There are a lot of companies looking for Virtual Assistant and lots of people also looking forward to work as virtual assistant.

But one thing that virtual employees should be aware of is that a “VA” comes in many hats. Usually, we think that being a VA is to assist somebody with his work, like calling in schedules, checking emails, arranging schedules and appointments and other personal stuff kind of work. Let me broaden your thinking in terms of this.

Some companies like the one I work for before consider their online researcher as VA. So you think that your job is all “glamour” but actually it is just research job that you are performing.

Other companies say they are looking for “VA” but what they actually want you to do is to call their prospects and set appointments. This is actually a telemarketing job or an appointment setter job.

Other hats of “VA” include online customer service ( your employer is too tired to respond to all complaints of his clients ), data entry ( this is the best kind of VA, either research or numbers ), tele prospecting ( this is where you play James Bond and spy on your employers competitors or potential clients and give a full report ), online researcher ( another great job, but hopefully work will keep coming in instead of seasonal ), back office or admin support ( this is another great job based on my experience ).

The best kind of “VA” work is answering phone calls and taking messages, arranging schedules and appointments and returning phone calls.

So the next time you find an ad that says “Looking for Virtual Assistant”, find out what kind of “VA” job it is. If it is the kind of work that comes once every one or two weeks, and you get paid only when you work, then it may be hard if you are looking to earn more than that.

The One that really broke my Heart

I resigned from an online job a month ago. Much as I like working for the company I had to quit. The assignments were slow in coming in and there are times when there is no work at all for 2 weeks straight and all of a sudden I receive an email in the middle of the night to do a 2 hours research!

I don’t know if these people realize that our time is opposite? or if they have thought that maybe I may have a full schedule already? or have something planned? What frustrates me at times is that some virtual employer or supervisor thinks that offshores employees should be awake and on call 24/7.

It really broke my heart to resign from the company because I really admire and respect the owner who is quite a decent man. But I cannot take the supervisor’s working attitude. She is ok actually, it’s just that I find her to be quite inconsiderate.

She emailed out assignments between 11am -4pm PST and gives out deadline 2 - 3 hours from that time. Hasn’t it entered her mind that I may have some other work planned or scheduled? I mean the company is not paying for all my time and telling me not to work for other company! Besides the time that she emailed out assignments are times when I am sound asleep, as I have mentioned we have opposite time.

Then there are times when there are no assignments for 1 or 2 weeks, because there are several of us “VA” ( virtual assistant ) so she has to spread the projects. This I find it hard too because I cannot sit around and twiddle my thumbs waiting her next assignment. This situation means no income.

After 6 weeks of working under her, I had to bid “adieu” and move on to more stable projects.