Should you rent or buy?

In today’s tumultuous real estate market, ask two experts whether you should buy a house or rent one. You might get two different answers.

There are calculators online that could help you answer the rent-versus-own question. But the single most important factor is: how long you’re going to stay put. To ride out the ups and downs, the ideal homeowner will be staying put at least four years and also have great credit. Bad credit means higher interest and higher payments. Owning could cost 35 percent more than renting, so a cash cushion is a must. Being able to deduct mortgage interest is also important. Not everybody can.

Beyond the math, there are other considerations. Like freedom and spare time. Owners have a lot less of both than renters. But owners can also customize their house the way they want and enjoy pride of ownership.

What about the crummy housing market? Well, don’t let all the headlines scare you. Low interest rates, low house prices, desperate sellers: these all mean better deals! And no market goes down forever.*

For all things rental or residential, call me at (313) 675-6755, or email: mayoubremax@aol.com.

Give Yourself (Good) Credit

If you’re in the market to improve your credit score, pull your credit reports. You can get copies of all three of your credit reports by calling my office.

We’ll go through your reports and look for serious errors, like an account that isn’t yours, or a late payment. If we find serious mistakes, we’ll go ahead and dispute them. Sometimes the process is very easy and the negative marks are taken off.

The next thing you want to do to improve your score is look how you’re using your credit cards. It’s very important to keep your credit balances well below your credit limits. You want to use 30% or less of your available credit limit at any time.

If you really want to see a boost in your scores, get your credit utilization down below 10 percent! That does the maximum good for your score.
Here are a couple other things to keep in mind: closing accounts will never help your score, and it may hurt it. Leave your accounts open until your score is where you want it to be. Also, you shouldn’t risk opening new accounts because you risk damaging your score. So, make sure you get your credit score up and you get the major loan you’re after before you open any new accounts.

Those are some ideas to boost your credit score and get the credit you deserve!

Call Credit Repair Consultants at (313) 289-4444, or email: elderfincon@gmail.com.

Turn $1 a day into $67,815

The coins rattling around in your pocket can add up to big savings over time.

All you have to do is take the pocket change at the end of the day and drop it in a jar. If you put away about a $1 a day, that’s $7 a week. At the end of the month, you’ll have about $30.

This is money in your pocket, so you’ve already paid taxes on it in the form of withholding from your paycheck. Every month, deposit your savings in a Roth IRA account, where it can grow tax-free and — more important — be withdrawn tax-free in the future.

What’s a paltry $30 a month going to do for you? Growing tax-free for 30 years, with a 10 percent annual return, your investment account will be worth $67,815.

Not bad for pocket change. But that’s just the beginning.

Here are some other ideas for saving a few bucks that can add up to big bucks over time.

Activity Monthly Savings Annual Savings
Takeout vs. dining out once a month $45 $540
Manicure less often $15 $180
Fewer trips to the car wash $12 $144
Video rental vs. movie monthly $11 $132
Regular coffee vs. cappuccino on weekdays $40 $480

If you can knock this $123 out of your monthly budget, at 10 percent, it will grow to $278,040 in 30 years. You’ve financed half your retirement with just a few small sacrifices.*

Gehad Alawan is a financial professional with AXA Equitable Advisors, LLC. You can reach him at (313) 506-0456.

Reality Check

Although the scales may be saying you haven’t lost much weight, maybe you’ve actually lost some fat but added some weight in muscle — and that’s still important progress. So get your body fat tested in four-week intervals. The skin-fold caliper test is accurate, easy and most cost effective. The fit range is 6 percent to 10 percent for men, and 14 percent to 20 percent for women.