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$16k on $400,000 isn't a good return, and when you say $16k Net, what is that? He said $16k per house, or $32k for $400K, or 8% ROI. But I agree, what is net, net depreciation? As others have asked, your total financial picture is needed plus the other variables to know if it's a good move or not. ...

13 (I think), not including duplicates across different accounts. But I'm working on it.

We converted our kids' UTMA accounts to 529 UGMA accounts, managed by VG's Utah plan. We were tired of paying taxes for our kids when all we were doing was saving for their college expenses. We will take a big tax hit this year for the liquidation, only wish we had done it sooner to avoid all the ac...

What our accountant did when the kids taxes were too high is to no longer have us claim them. We weren't getting that much benefit from them (tax wise, that is :D ), and they can earn the first $10k tax free. Did you convert UGMA to UGMA 529 in Vanguard? I didn't think they had that option. It look...

With just our family of 3 kids under 12, we normally don't reach the $100 mark, but if my wife and I go out on a date dinner, we might hit that number a couple times per year. We live in a foodie town and we like splurging on a nice experience. But in recent memory, our best meal was during Portland...

For a few years we had an assigned rep and we could never reach him. It got to the point where my wife and joked that he was not real. We finally did talk on the phone, and it was so he could let us know we were getting a new rep. That was about 2 years ago and we've come to work pretty closely with...

It's tax time, and our CPA told us our kids will have sizable tax bills because they received a lot of dividends and capital gains from their investments. We converted their UTMA accounts into UGMA 529 accounts, so I think we are okay in paying for their college costs, otherwise I would have directe...

What would you do with the house when you are not there? Can your son use it or rent it out? If not, can he at least keep an eye on it and make sure it's in good shape? (If you already addressed these issues, sorry for the repeat.) To me, not using a house for ~8 months per year seems like a waste. ...

We moved to our current house about 5 years ago, schools being probably the major reason why (from across town where we were in a great school district too, but not as great and not nearly as small as our current school district). Imagine our surprise when our oldest child goes to 1st grade and gets...

As a Portland area resident, I would not say that the real estate market is low. It's a bit of a feeding frenzy now with inventory so low, it's like we're back in 2005-2007. So I would proceed with caution and not get caught in a bidding war especially, as others have pointed out, if you don't plan ...

Ko Olina used to be a safe, calm way to snorkel if you have young kids but I heard Marriott/Disney recently closed off the lagoons to the public. I'd check because we made that a regular stop as well. Ko'olina is still open to the public. Per Hawaii State Law, all beaches are public, and there is a...

We were just in DC for spring break (we were told the cherry blossoms would be blooming then but a cold snap (with snow!) came in on the Monday of our week's stay). It sounds like you don't have children like we do, but maybe my comments may be useful to you: 1. If you wanted a tour of the Capitol, ...

I am a landlord and encourage friends looking for alternative investments to consider it. Yes, it's extra work, but I have experienced the adage that most of the work is in choosing the right tenant. Setting aside the financial aspects, if you do your homework and use the right forms for screening a...

I very much enjoyed the tour of Iolani Palace. The Hawaiian history was fascinating. Our tour guide was an older Hawaiian woman - she said she was 78 (I think) but she was awfully spry for that age. +1 on touring the palace, it's very approachable and interesting history. It doesn't take a long tim...

For something different, try Leonard's for malasadas, a type of doughnut that comes unfilled or filled with different creams, and we get them every time we go. The shrimp trucks are good, very downscale. And if you want to see a lot of sea turtles, go to Turtle Beach (not Turtle Bay), it's a short d...

Scooter57 wrote:I got the "you have already downloaded" message. I used the Wiley page chat link to contact customer service and she sent me a different link that worked.

+1, very quickly got a correct link and downloaded right away.

I just "fired" a Realtor because he refused to write an offer on a property I liked, saying that my bid would be too low. I fumed about it overnight and the next morning, called someone else to write the offer for me. I'm now in a counter-offer with the seller as they liked my offer the b...

If you want to sell and don't like the idea of signing title over to the tenant at time of sale, you could do a land sale contract where you hold title to the property until the tenant (buyer) pays off the mortgage completely. In the event of default, you still have to take some steps to reclaim you...

I'm a little late in following up, but we had a phone call with the CFP, no questionnaire to fill out before, he wanted to know what we had in mind, then we filled out the questionnaire. I admit only I filled out the Q and now I let slide getting input from the spouse to submit it to the CFP for his...

As someone who recently (through my wife) inherited a large amount of money plus a large number of headaches in doing last-minute planning and then 2+ years of administration, with the last-minute planning occurring while my father-in-law was ill with terminal cancer, I recommend talking about this ...

We are remodeling our house (2 story with daylight basement) to have a master suite on the main floor and upstairs (and an office/bedroom in basement with full bath) to accommodate my parents (now in their 70's) and ourselves, both now and in the future. With three kids ages 9 to 11 to boot, we want...

In Oregon (don't know Hawaii law), a 'small estate affidavit' means the decedent died with a small enough estate that a full blown probate is not required. Was your mother's estate probated or otherwise cleared through the state? You should talk to the insurance company regardless and see what they ...

I was going to post a new thread about this topic in part, so I'd like to know what people here thought of the Oregon plan now. I started accounts for my kids when it was with Strong and went through the turmoil (tuned out and didn't realize until today that TIAA-CREF now manages it!). Now I'm tryin...

I own single family homes as rentals, and I've been drawn to the higher cap rates for multi-unit buildings (APTS). I don't do it because I am content to take a lower cap rate (closer to 6%) with the trade off benefit that I don't work very hard on my rentals. Once I find good renters, they stay for ...

Our family took a Princess cruise to Alaska this past summer, it was my first cruise, and overall it was enjoyable. We took the route that went to Glacier Bay National Park, and that scenery was quite spectacular and probably worth getting an oceanside room (my parents got that one, we got a much ch...

I just want to point out that creating and funding trusts does not automatically mean you lower your inheritance taxes. Unless you stop owning or controlling the funds in that trust (irrevocable trust), it will still count toward determining your tax bill. I usually promote the privacy and speed of ...

When our 2001 Honda Odyssey finally bites the dust, I was considering this car also. We rarely need AWD or 4WD, we go to the mountains once or twice a year. We do, however, have 3 kids and haul around a lot of gear, so the low clearance helps most of the time. I did not know about the absence of a s...

It's great for me to read about this as we are in the planning stage of remodeling our house. We looked for a house that fit our 'needs' list but gave up (not entirely, I keep peeking at what comes on the market). We are doing a major remodeling, basically just keeping the footprint of a 3-storey ho...

I check daily now, especially with the market going up and our overall balance hit a nice, round number. I don't think I tinker too much, my last move was to stop reinvesting dividends back into high ER funds and pushing them into low ER ones or money market funds.

I have a 2001 Odyssey that I love, it has about 125K miles on it, and I am taking in it to my trusted mechanic just to make sure things are running right. The transmission has acted finicky for quite a while, but I kind of know how to baby it. A previous poster mentioned cars he likes and keeps long...

You could try getting a free or low-cost consultation from an Indiana attorney: http://www.in.gov/judiciary/probono/2333.htm http://www.indianalegalservices.org/ In Oregon the state bar offers a service of a $35 flat fee for an initial consultation with an attorney in the field you request, so maybe...

We have a telephone consultation scheduled for next month with a Vanguard CFP who works with our rep after I read about what benefits our account had. I had previously been looking at paying a local fee-only CFP a flat fee of between $2,500-4,000 for what I hope is similar work. I have a raft of que...

Answering only one part of your question, but which goes to the heart of your concern. There is a very easy way to avoid tax on the income earned in a trust - pay it out to a beneficiary. Income earned by the trust is only taxed in the trust when it is accumulated. Can you explain this better? What...

Darn, I will be out of town for the March meeting.

I did send Ron a PM and also an email and have not heard back, so I didn't know if the chapter was still active. Sounds like it is.

Thanks alisa4804 for the info, hope to make it to the next meeting.

It seems there is an active Portland chapter, can someone please contact me to let me know when and where the next meeting will be? Thanks.

Thanks so much, Alan, I appreciate your clear comments and responses. She was a named beneficiary, so I think going forward we'll be able to reduce her RMDs by a significant amount, which is a nice planning option to have.

Thanks again!

How can a CPA avoid these calculations? Isn't this the kind of thing that is supposed to be bread and butter for that profession? My CPA friend said there are not enough situations (for his firm, anyway) where a beneficiary does not cash out completely the owner's IRA account(s). I told him he coul...

Interesting that it can be that complex. Alan, is it correct to assume than an investment company has no fiduciary responsibility to advise correctly regarding RMD, or even to compute a correct number, as a paid tax accountant would? After all, they have no way to be sure they know all the IRA asse...

I just attended a class on how to build (as more of a general contractor, not the nuts and bolts) an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) in Portland, Oregon. The primary point is what your local city/county requires or limits is very important (my own situation of being in a different adjacent city/county...

Ditto on the statute of limitations concern, you should find out the limits for both contract and tort actions, try to contact a local attorney from the city/county where your house was located. (Some actions have very short statutes, like landlord-tenant or consumer fraud in my home state of Oregon...

2001 Honda Odyssey, ~129,000 miles. Bought used in 2003 with ~45,000 miles when we found out my wife was expecting twins (sold 2001 Subaru Outback we bought new for the first baby, figuring we'd have 1 more child....) 2010 Toyota Prius, ~20,000 miles. Bought used this year with low miles, wanted a P...

We are in the beginning stages of planning a whole-house remodel, and 'aging in place' is a relatively big goal for us. My wife and I are relatively young, 42-40, but we are designing with the possibility that my parents, one or both, will live with us in the next ten years or so. So we are shooting...

I don't know if someone has already mentioned this, but you can get HDTV signals through your cable at no extra charge, at least where I am (Portland, OR). I tried to grab OTA HD signals but we have too many trees blocking the signals. I gave up until a friend said Comcast is required by law to prov...

OP has a property manager, so they answer the calls, correct? Otherwise, paying 10% doesn't make sense. My opinion is, unless you can refi (at 4% for a rental, maybe?) or have a way to use the carry-forward loss (esp. with the depreciation on top of the actual cash loss each month), I would cut my l...

Assuming you want your kids to go to college, you should talk to a college financial aid counselor about the best way of holding this money to give them the best chance of getting financial aid (scholarships or grants). They're plenty young enough to plan ahead. I'm currently obsessed with trying to...

I feel the same way as the OP, wanting to move some of my investments in VG mutual funds to hard assets like residential real estate that I can manage myself (i.e. single family houses). I had to laugh at the notion of a fire as an investment risk, since that is insurable (including lost rent), but ...

Where I live (Portland, OR area) there's been a push for more awareness of radon gas and its link to lung cancer. Someone down the street lost her husband, a non-smoker, to lung cancer, and she later tested her house to find a really high radon level (~55). http://www.lakeoswegoreview.com/news/story...

I think if his succession plan did not so publicly fail recently, this would be less of an issue.

We have the Costco Amex card which we try to use as much as possible. I decided to cancel my Hawaiian Airlines Visa card after getting the promotional 35,000 miles for signing up, before the annual fee came due. I simultaneously signed up for a United Airlines Visa to get another 40,000 miles, first...

We are in a similar situation, but inherited a house that is about 30 minutes away without traffic, unbearable if there is traffic. For now we decided to rent it out with a non-professional property manager who lives in the same condo building (I masterfully negotiated down the fee to 9%! :annoyed )...