Single, Married and Divorcees Can Benefit From Their Financial Approach

Retirement On the Mind Yet Half of Women Respondents Do Not Participate in a Retirement Plan

NEW YORK, Nov. 19 /PRNewswire/ — A newly released national survey finds that whether women are single, married and co-habitants, divorced or widowed can have key differences in their attitudes and behaviors with regard to investing.

The OppenheimerFunds, Inc. 2007 Women & Investing Survey (1), released today, found that attitudes about investing differed among marital demographics, especially in the case of widows. Widowed women had more confidence when it came to managing their money, with nearly 65% of widowed respondents giving themselves a rating of 8 or better on a scale of 1-10 when asked how good of a job they are doing managing their money. This compares with nearly 40% of married/co-habitants and single respondents and 52% of divorced respondents who answered in the same way.

“It makes sense that women who are responsible for their own finances through a major life event such as widowhood or divorce have more confidence in their money management skills,” said Lauren Coulston, Assistant Vice President, Advocacy and Training Manager at OppenheimerFunds. “One possible reason for this confidence could be because we see more widows working with financial advisors. Widowed women are often forced to deal with their own finances and appear to approach financial planning methodically. Often financial planning occurs in a time of crisis but it does not have to.”

Widowed respondents were also more likely (almost 68%) to list retirement as their primary investment goal followed by divorced (59%), married/co- habitants (57%) and single (54%), and least likely to cite a lack of extra money as the reason they are not currently participating in a retirement savings vehicle or plan. When asked which source of information they relied on for investing advice, widows accounted for the highest percentage (40.5%), that relied on a financial advisor followed by divorced (17.3%), married/co- habitants (16.7%) and single (11%), and were the least likely group to rely on no source of investment information.

“The fact is, eighty to ninety percent of women will be solely responsible for managing their own finances at some point of their life due to longer life expectancies and higher divorce rates, said Coulston. “Regardless of marital status, financial advisors should bring women into financial conversations as early as possible.”

Women Know It Will Be Expensive To Retire Yet Knowing is Only Half the Battle…

The majority of women (58%) agreed that retirement was their primary investment goal, however, half do not participate in a retirement plan. When asked why they aren’t currently participating, most women (55%) responded that they didn’t have enough extra money to save, followed by nearly 40% who said they weren’t working and nearly 30% said paying off debt impacted saving for retirement. Meanwhile, when asked if they had $1,000 to spare, whether female respondents would use it towards vacation or retirement, over half said they’d spend it on a vacation.

When asked how often they think about retirement, only 25% think about it often or very often and 30% do not think about it at all. 79% of women stated a lack of preparation for retirement.

While 44% of women said retirement plans will be their primary source of income during retirement, half of the respondents were not participating in a plan. One third of women expect to rely on social security and 12% on pensions. In addition, an overwhelming majority of women said that healthcare costs (93%), inflation (82%), social security (82%) and standard of living (80%) would be big concerns for them while they were in retirement.

“When we ask women what would motivate them to start saving for retirement, year after year, they say if they knew saving just $50 a month over several decades would provide them with more than $500,000,” said Coulston. “Our research shows that women want financial advisors to start discussing retirement planning with them more than 10 years prior to retirement, when in reality, those discussions need to take place much sooner.”

Lost Generation of Women Boomers and Gen Xers — Weakest Link Among Women Investors

Women within the second wave of Boomers-ages 43 through 51, within what is considered the “lost generation” and Gen Xers are the most unprepared for retirement, according to the survey. Overall, 79% of women did not feel financially prepared for retirement, the majority of which (52%) were between the ages of 35-54. Forty four percent between the ages of 35-54 stated that retirement was their primary investment goal however nearly 50% had not thought about retirement within the past month, and almost 40% were not enrolled in any sort of retirement savings vehicle or plan. When asked why there were not currently participating in a retirement savings vehicle or plan, 44% of women aged 35-54 did not have extra money to save.

“It appears that these groups of women investors say one thing but do another when it comes to retirement savings,” said Coulston. “While we would like to see them saving more, this presents a good opportunity for financial advisors to try to engage these women as early on as possible as it is crucial that they start to save and invest as early as possible.”

Women’s lack of confidence in their own ability to invest is apparent in this group as well. Among those surveyed who felt they were not very knowledgeable about investing, nearly 50% fell in the 35-54 age range.

So Much for The Single Woman Care-Free Lifestyle — Married and Co- Habitants Have More Debt

More than 60% of women surveyed have over $5,000 in household debt and more than 30% maintain over $20,000, which remained unchanged from last year’s research. Credit card debt (60%) once again was cited as the number one source of debt listed, with most women (75%) using 2 or more credit cards and half using 3 or more credit cards.

Of the women surveyed, married or co-habitant respondents had the highest percentages of household debt over both $5,000 (74%) and $20,000 (40%) with single women following with 59% over $5,000 or more, and 23% over $20,000. Married or co-habitants also had the most credit card debt (63%) and carried the most number of credit cards with 20% carrying debt on 5 or more cards and half carrying debt on 3 or more. Widowed respondents however were the least likely to carry any debt.

   Other Interesting Statistics  

 – Married and co-habitants are equally as likely to rely on co-workers, friends and relatives for investment advice as they are their spouse or a financial professional.   

– The majority of women said that it’s most appropriate to discuss finances later in the dating phase (48%) or upon getting engaged (30%).   

– Most women surveyed (73%) do not work with a financial advisor and the number one stated reason (71%) is because they don’t think they have enough money followed by 8% of women who said they invest on their own.   

– Half of women surveyed do not plan to purchase long-term care insurance in retirement, yet 93% of women are concerned about healthcare costs in retirement.   

– 40% of women say they never rebalance their retirement plan portfolio

November 12, 2007, Inman Blog

Some home sellers are turning back the pages of an old playbook in offering to turn renters into buyers. The market slump has resurfaced contracts that can bring rental income to sellers and give renters the ability to work toward the purchase of the home they are renting.

These rent-to-own contracts, which are also known as lease with an option to buy or lease-option deals, typically allow prospective buyers to rent a property for a designated period of time while providing an option to purchase that property at a specific price, according to real estate columnist Ilyce R. Glink. Prospective buyers are typically asked to pay an option fee, and the deals can be structured so that this fee and a portion of the rent count toward the down payment in the purchase.

Lease-option deals were also used when the market was booming, as speculators acquired options to buy homes and hoped to sell off those options as home prices appreciated, the Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston, S.C., reports.

But while these deals appear to be a win-win for sellers and prospective buyers, there are some big risks. The newspaper notes that “lease options are becoming more popular” in this down market, “though the deals pose risks for buyers and sellers alike.”

Glink also noted the risks in a column this month: “There are plenty of ways that a rent-to-own or lease-option situation can go bad. There are scam artists who pose as owners of a property and don’t actually own it, which can cause tenants to be tossed out if the true owner emerges. There are also owners who take advantage of their tenants.” She suggested hiring a real estate lawyer to assist with rent-to-own contracts.

She was responding to a letter suggesting that lease-option contracts often fail and a number of states are investigating abuses of these contracts.

Real estate columnist Kenneth R. Harney noted last year that the state attorney general in Florida was investigating at least one lease-option promoter “for allegedly defrauding dozens of clients by pocketing their option fees and failing to transfer the houses when tenants were ready to buy,” and the state Legislature in Texas passed a law enacted this year that is designed to provide more protections to consumers who enter into lease-option contracts.

Inman News reporter Matt Carter also sheds light on “accidental landlords” — property owners who seek rental income from homes they can’t sell — in a special report.

* Mortgage rates were collected from publicly available sources (yahoo.com) on the date stated. The accuracy of the information and the availability of these rates are not guaranteed by the publisher. Rates are provided for informational purposes only and are subject to change without notice. Actual market interest rates may vary.

NEW YORK, Nov. 1 /PRNewswire/ — High net worth investors now have the opportunity to exchange investment strategies and ideas as well as tap into the knowledge and experience of some of the world’s foremost financial advisors, writers and market experts.

Wealth Management Exchange (http://www.wealthmanagementexchange.com/) is a new online community for affluent investors.

“Our estates and investments are too important to completely hand over to someone else,” says Wayne Cooper, CEO and cofounder of Wealth Management Exchange. “We can delegate select functions like money management to those who have the training, and experience but ultimately we must monitor them, make sure that they are performing well, executing our plans and charging reasonable fees. We must retain the quarterback position.”

Wealth Management Exchange helps affluent individuals develop the expertise and acquire the knowledge to guide their advisors and make the hard decisions necessary to invest their portfolios.

To fulfill its mission, the website has brought together a team of highly- regarded investment experts to contribute articles, blogs and white papers. Among the topics covered: global stocks and bonds; managing portfolios; alternative investments such as hedge funds, real estate and private equity; estate planning; tax strategies, retirement planning, wealth transfer and more.

The website emails free periodic “Alert” newsletters on many investment topics, convenes investment conferences and hosts discussion groups.

The new website, Wealth Management Exchange, is also meant to serve as a source of “second opinions” on investment advice affluent individuals get from their advisors and traditional information outlets.

“We take a skeptical view of the recommendations accepted as conventional wisdom,” says Mr. Cooper. “Just as you would want to oversee any decisions involving your physical health, so too your financial well being should be in your hands.”

Wealth Management Exchange takes the position that when it comes to investment knowledge, one size does not fit all. “We have content on our website that should appeal to different segments of the high net worth community-entrepreneurs and small business owners; professionals and senior executives; women and heirs to wealthy families, among others,” says David Beck, senior vice president and cofounder.

Wealth Management Exchange is being billed as “the place to learn and share information on wealth management issues.”

The Heinz Family Philanthropies, who along with the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER), is working to improve the financial futures of millions of women.  

An innovative online book entitled, What Women Need to Understand About Retirement is available for free at www.womensretirement.org and provides the reader with a blueprint to both get started planning a retirement and to grow that investment. It contains seven easy-to-read chapters, each written by an expert on retirement security issues. The book was written as an acknowledgment of the fact that poverty in old age is most often the face of a woman. As you may know, women face a lot of financial difficulties in their senior years. Here are some scary statistics from the publication:

 * Two-thirds of working women earn less than $30,000 a year.

* Nearly half of all women work in low-paying jobs that do not offer a pension or 401(k) plan.

* The median income in 2004 for retired women was $12,080, compared with men’s income of $21,102.

Clearly, it’s important to get this valuable information into the hands of as many women as possible.

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Although “subprime” has become a four-letter word in the country’s collective lexicon and no one is sure when the credit crisis that was spawned by a meltdown in the risky lending sector will ease, mortgage bankers say you can count on this: Subprime shall return.

The next generation of subprime mortgages, however, will look much different than the loans issued during the height of the housing boom in the first half of the decade that are now causing so much trouble, mortgage professionals say.

“So long as we have a policy position in this country of maintaining or further increasing homeownership rates there is going to be subprime lending,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist with First American CoreLogic, a provider of mortgage-risk management and fraud-protection technology.

“We have been very successful in increasing homeownership rates. One of the ways we’ve done that is by creating liquidity and offering credit to people who we traditionally wouldn’t have 20 years ago — the subprime borrower.”

Fleming was one of 4,300 mortgage professionals who traveled from around the country to Boston this week for the industry’s annual convention, where participants did a lot of reflecting on the lead-up to the credit crunch this summer and the housing slump pervading many of the nation’s real-estate markets.

Many are looking to the Federal Housing Administration to step into the subprime void. Several proposals in Congress would expand FHA lending authority, allowing it to come to the rescue of subprime borrowers struggling with their current mortgages.

The FHA, which provides government-backed mortgage insurance on low-down-payment loans, is in a good position to address the subprime market, Fleming said, even though the growth in private-investor-backed subprime lending “directly cannibalized the FHA business. FHA went down and subprime went up.”

That said, subprime mortgages backed by nongovernment investors will also return — albeit with greatly different lending standards than in recent years, some in the industry say. Translation: It won’t be the “Old Wild West” again, where mortgage money came easily for all types of borrowers, said Thomas P. Cronin, vice chairman of Clayton Fixed Income Services, a credit-risk management firm.

“But it (subprime lending) will come back in a mature and rational fashion, as markets tend to do,” Cronin said.

Rebound still a ways off

Certainly, that return isn’t happening just yet. According to data from Clayton, nonconforming securitizations were down 82% between December 2006 and August 2007. Nonconforming loans are those that can’t be purchased by government-sponsored mortgage agencies Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which are limited to buying loans of $417,000 or less.

Jumbo loans, those above the limit, and most subprime loans rely on the private-securities market for liquidity.

“[Subprime] volumes are way off from where they were even a year ago,” said Steve Nadon, president and chief operating office of Option One Mortgage Corp., during a MBA panel discussion. But Nadon thinks that the subprime market will indeed return.

“Will we serve as many borrowers as before? Maybe not,” he said.

Hard-working people with limited income or blemished credit histories deserve and need access to credit, but the terms should be fair, said David Beck, policy director for Self-Help, a community-development lender that makes fixed-rate loans to credit-blemished borrowers. Self-Help’s affiliate, the Center for Responsible Lending, is a vocal policy organization with a mission to protect homeownership and eliminate abusive financial practices.

“It used to be the problem was access to credit. Now it’s the terms of credit,” Beck said. “There’s a line between providing fair access to credit and taking advantage of people.”

To start, Beck said prepayment penalties should be prohibited on subprime loans. He also thinks that there should be more of an effort by conventional lenders to figure out which of these subprime borrowers eventually could be moved into prime products.

Subprime lending shouldn’t dry up completely, it’s the “abusive products” that should dry up, Beck said. Before putting a borrower into a loan with an interest rate maybe one percentage point above the prevailing conforming rate, Self-Help spends a fair amount of time with clients to make sure they can make the monthly payments, he said.

While FHA reform might help some of these borrowers, it’s hard to say how much, he said.

Regaining investor confidence

For subprime products to come back to the market with any significance, it’s necessary to first build up the confidence of those who invest in them, Fleming said.

Some investors have been beginning to return in the past couple of weeks, Fleming said. He expects that the prime jumbo loan market could be the first to make a return to some kind of normalcy, but there is a long way to go before the nonconforming market could be considered stable.

How will the confidence be fully regained? For one: “We have to do a better job of making sure a high percentage of the loans aren’t headed for default to begin with,” Cronin said. As such, subprime mortgage products need to be redefined, he said.

As people got caught up in the euphoria of home-price appreciation, “we got away from balanced credit decisions,” said Michael McQuiggan, CEO of Tri-Emerald Financial Group, a mortgage lender and processor, during the MBA panel discussion.

“People that probably shouldn’t have had those homes in the first place had gotten away with it for years because of home-price appreciation,” Cronin said. Suddenly, when they couldn’t refinance those loans, problems started surfacing and foreclosures became imminent.

Now, there has been a shift back to basics across the entire mortgage lending spectrum, using more reasonable assessments of what buyers can afford, Fleming said. People now need better credit scores and a larger down payment to get a mortgage, in addition to documenting their incomes and proving where they work, he pointed out.

For those in the mortgage industry, there should be a return in focus to the writing of quality loans — not just doing a large quantity of them, Nadon said. And perhaps part of the lender’s mission should also be helping subprime borrowers graduate into prime loans, he added.

Beyond that, there have been calls for more transparency in the market, and suggestions that the risks of investing in mortgages should be completely understood at the outset.

“We need to sort out in the industry how we assess risk and provide signals as to how risky these things are,” Fleming said.

Plus, investors and lenders also need to be more responsible in how they approach leverage, Cronin said.

It was leverage, after all, that exacerbated investor losses, Doug Duncan, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said during a briefing with reporters earlier this week.

“Subprime was clearly the trigger, but it was the old standard that leverage works well when asset values are going up to increase return on equity; but when asset values are going down, it works adversely to exhaust equity,” he said.

Following the facts on discounts can help you find the real deals NEW YORK (MarketWatch) —

You’ve heard a lot (probably too much!) about real estate market problems and especially the rapid rise in foreclosures. But as a real estate investor you’re picking up big-time “bargain” signals on your antennae.

The headlines are ominous: some 243,000 foreclosures in August, up 36% from July and 115% from August 2006. There’s blood in the streets.

So how do you get from “there must be bargains out there” to “how much will I save, and where are the best bargains?”

I like to guide any buying decision as much as possible with the facts. But while lots of foreclosures are out there, how good an opportunity they might be was hard to know. Until now.

For sale and on sale

RealtyTrac, the same real estate portal and analysis group that supplies monthly national foreclosure statistics, also calculates the average discount-to-value by market — that is, how much foreclosed homes actually sold for vs. their estimated market value in their markets. So — bingo — you’ve got a good indicator of how good an opportunity you’re looking at.

Search on “foreclosures by state,” and then click “view (state) foreclosure trends,” and you’ll get a nice snapshot of foreclosure filings, actual sales, average sales price and — most of all — the discount-to-value.

You could page through state by state to get a national picture of where the good deals are. Instead, I went to the source. RealtyTrac was kind enough to supply me with source data in a spreadsheet. I’ll share the most interesting findings.

National trends

Nationwide, in the three months June through August, some 68,426 foreclosed homes sold in 2007 vs. 54,886 in 2006. The average sales price dropped from $271,000 to just over $239,000.

The discount-to-market ratio increased slightly from 76.42% to 77.68%. How do you read this ratio? It is the actual foreclosure sales price compared to the perceived market value of the home. So 77.68% means, on average, you’d get just over a 22% savings or “discount” on your foreclosure purchase. That’s down from just over 23% a year ago.

The best (and worst) around the countrySo, now the fun part: a state by state look at where the best deals and biggest changes are happening:

From June-August 2006 to June-August 2007, California, Nevada, Michigan, Massachusetts and Arizona showed the greatest increase in the number of foreclosure sales, while New York, New Jersey and North Carolina posted the biggest decreases among states that had 1,000 or more foreclosure sales.

But while California heads the list in sales, the discount is relatively small — one of the five smallest in the country at only 17%. The best deals are in troubled Rust Belt or manufacturing-centric states — Alabama, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio.

States with largest discounts	Average foreclosure sale price	Average % of market value
Alabama	$133,834	59.95
Pennsylvania	110,936	61.68
Indiana	99,255	63.50
Ohio	90,300	64.70
Missouri	144,768	67.25
States with smallest discounts	Average foreclosure sale price	Average % of market value
Hawaii	$657,211	85.41
Washington	288,397	83.68
Virginia	338,912	83.48
Massachusetts	290,835	83.03
California	437,813	83.00

Finally, trends are interesting: Discounts are increasing in Midwestern states and in New Mexico, while decreasing some in Alaska, Iowa and Texas. This may be a sign of strengthening real estate markets in those states — or weak market values to begin with.

State	Average % of market value	Discount increase (decrease)
Louisiana	74.04	15.88%
New Mexico	72.59	12.01
Minnesota	72.79	10.50
Indiana	73.52	9.82
Alabama	63.50	7.48
Alaska	82.02	(8.03)
Iowa	77.32	(5.34)
Texas	78.75	(4.82)
Kansas	74.03	(4.56)
Hawaii	85.41	(3.47)

These facts will help you know how much to pay — and to know if foreclosures are right for you in the first place. They may also say something about which way the market in your area is likely to go. Either way, they will help you find the “real” deal.

Peter Sander contributed to this article.

Jennifer Openshaw is the author of ” The Millionaire Zone” and CEO of Openshaw’s Family Financial Network. She hosts ABC Radio’s Winning Advice and serves as an adviser to some of America’s top corporations. You can reach her at jopenshaw@themillionairezone.com 

Single family homes

Condos & Townhomes

I love Richmond! Sure it’s had its share of bad press but Richmond is so incredibly rich and diverse and there is so much to do. I go out to Richmond at least 2-3 times per week. Richmond has a wonderful shoreline, a great dog park, fantastic bike paths, cute homes, shopping galore and it’s close to everything!

A little history…Richmond was founded in 1905 and until 1919 had the largest winery in the world and in the ‘20s the KKK was rampant. A small town at the time with a population of only 2,105 the town grew with the advent of the Ford Motor Company in the 30’s and the onset of World War II . World War II brought the shipyards along the waterfront and an influx of workers, including African Americans and women entered the munitions and manufacturing workforce for the first time. Richmond grew from a population of 2,105 in 1905 to a population of 99,000 by 1950. In the 60’s Richmond was also home to the Black Panthers. In the 80s the former shipyards were transformed into a multiunit residential area now known as Marina Bay. In early 2000 the city began an aggressive redevelopment effort “spurring exurban housing, condos, townhomes, a transit village and terraced hillside subdivision. Richmond today has 104,000 people and is incredibly diverse in race, culture, religious and ethnic backgrounds.

Speaking of culture…have you heard of Rosie the Riveter?

Rosie the Riveter, a cultural icon, represents the six million women who worked in the manufacturing plants during World War II. More than that Rosie increased the number of working women to 20 million by 1944 and opened up the work force for women. Interested in learning more? Then you should visit the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park. The Park commemorates women’s shipbuilding and support for the war effort in the 1940s. Directions to the park can be found here.

Got a pooch that you’d like to frolic with? Then you have to check out Pt. Isabel. Pt. Isabel is the largest dog park in Alameda county. 22 glorious acres for you and fido! On a sunny day expect to spend at least a good one and a half to two hours there. Pt. Isabel is by far THE best dog park around (Fort Funston in San Francisco comes in at second). Restrooms, dog wash and dog store, café, open water, paved trails, nature all around…simply wonderful. To get there take Hgwy 80 to Central Avenue exit. Head left, past Costco and the road dead ends into the Park. Make sure to bring your leash. Doggie bags provided. To find out more visit Pido

Not sure about all the neighborhoods? Then click on the link for a map of Richmond’s neighborhoods. Richmond neighborhood map

Thinking about moving to Richmond? Looking for a bungalow or a home up in the hills? From the Annex to the Marina to the View or Downtown Richmond has what you are looking for whether in the 300K price range or the million dollar home. Email me if you’d like a list of homes that are currently for sale or ask me for the list of little known diamonds in the rough.

For more information on what Richmond has to offer click on the image below.