Investment Mortgage Guy

It’s a new year and a time to reflect on 2008 and think about the areas in your life you want to work on for 2009. For many, 2008 was a tough year financially. I know too many investors who lost their investment properties due to foreclosure. Others watched their 401K or retirement accounts drop 25% to 50%.  No matter where your net worth was, you probably saw it decrease in 2008.

So where to do you go from here? Do you convert all your money to cash or CD’s and never trust anything else? Do you buy real estate or stocks at these low prices or will they just continue to fall? I don’t have a crystal ball and don’t pretend to know what the future will bring but I believe that 2009 will be a come back year for many.  I see three major categories of people out there and for each of them, there is a much different approach they will need to take in order to build their wealth this year. First the folks that crashed and burned in 2008. Many people lost their jobs or their income streams dried up. For them, building wealth this year means getting the debts under control and getting a steady flow of predictable income going again.  I have an excellent recommendation for this group. It’s a software product called the money merge account. This program manages all of your income and debts, shows you how long it will take to pay everything off and when to pay it.  You can learn more about it here DEBT FREE. For this group, it probably won’t be a big year for new acquisitions of investment properties. The current mortgage guidelines will most likely rule them out.

The second group was very near retirement but watched their retirement accounts decrease to a level where now retirement in the near future is out of the question. Worse yet, some of them are now fearing the loss of their jobs as their company continues to lay people off. The best advice I can get this folks to keep their noses to the grind stone, keep their overhead as low as possible and plan on adding another 5 years to their retirement plans. I wouldn’t recommend doing anything drastic like getting aggressive in the stock or real estate market. Things just aren’t going to happen on the time line they were hoping for.

The last group is going to have an opportunity to have some fun and be rewarded for having some extra cash right now. Regardless of whether or not we have reached the bottom of the market yet. If you buy based on good fundamentals, your risk of losing money long term is very low. These folks have a buffet table of options available for themselves that could dramatically increase their wealth. Now is the moment for this group to shine and make their move. Whether it’s a new home, investment properties, or stocks, with a little homework right now, they could do quite well for themselves.  

Regardless of which group your in, I believe in my heart that this is going to be a great year! Let’s hope I’m right!

Rob Bonahoom

Mortgage Coach