The Consumer Balance Sheet
The Consumer Balance Sheet: 25% of Total Assets = House (keep the word Home out of your vocabulary when talking about financial...
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Soaring Home Prices and Relatively Flat Income
Inflation drives house values up, and if income is keeping pace, most of us are happy. When income stay relatively flat - as you can see...
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Visualizing the Dynamics of Housing Affordability
Great resource to visualize the dynamics of housing affordability... https://dqydj.com/historical-home-affordability/
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The Incompatibility of Rates and Housing Prices
Housing Prices - YOY change in the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Prices. Inflation (driven by low rates and high demand + low...
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Recent Volatility of Rates
Talking to one of our CLAs recently we discussed the speed at which rates have moved up. Researching it further - I was surprised to see...
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Thought Experiment on Price of Goods and Services
Thought experiment - You live on an island with a fixed number of people, goods, and services. Every year a plane flies over the island...
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Thoughts on Inflation
"Inflation feels like paying interest on money you didn't borrow." Todd Ballenger
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US Housing Affordability Downtrend
When rates go down, buying power goes up. This means if the house prices stay the same - you can buy a bigger house or have a lower...
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3-Legged Stool of Investing
We talk about Safety, Liquidity and Return as the 3-legged stool of investing. CASH is a version of sitting on the sidelines with your...
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Understanding Cycles and Maximizing Your Liability Asset Gap
Things move in cycles, and one of my favorite Macro econ gurus is Marco 42 - Darius Dale. He has studied what works well in each market...
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Understanding Market Structure Cycles
The market moves in cycles, rates move in cycles, the sun and moon move in cycles... Knowing where you are in the cycle is key.
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Entrenchment of Inflation
I am writing a new ebook as part of a series - and that includes this hot topic of inflation. When they say 'sticky' they mean that once...
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Interest Rate Increases and Market Strength
Interest rate increases are often a sign of market strength... in the past the increases slowed the market, but the market easily...
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A Look at the Impact of the Financial World Changes
Wonderful look at what's happening right now with the financial world, and the financial world does impact just about everything we do...
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Focusing Wealth in the House
If you've followed my work, you know that I crossed the balance sheet because I felt I could have a bigger impact on consumers growing...
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Stimulus Payments - Effect on Inflation and Housing Affordability
We peaked at close to 5% personal savings during the COVID recession, mainly from stimulus payments directly to the consumer. This...
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The Illusion of Appreciation
When we talk about housing - the only way buying a house makes you money directly is through appreciation. This appreciation is real,...
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Long-term Unsustainability of Purchasing Houses Purely for Return
We teach that your house is an investment - it has properties that reduce your cost of living indoors over time (like appreciation of...
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Mortgage Payment Over Time
What story does this graph tell? HINT: Real income goes up over time, Real rents go up over time, what goes down over time? Your real...
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The Reality of Investment Returns
When you invest, you are used to seeing a chart like this - this shows investments returns since 1926. Note the reason we invest in...
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PIN/FIN Challenge for Your Personal Financial Journey
NIFE has released new consumer financial education. Aren't you a consumer? Click and take the PIN/FIN Challenge to see how you are doing...
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Why Should We Be Concerned About Rising Interest Rates?
For every 1% increase in rates - a buyer loses about $30,000 of buying power. That loss of buying power makes it harder to pay 'up' for...
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