James & Miel

Evaluating Small Business Investments

March 23, 2010

Hello Folks, At some point you may have the personal finance basics covered – got your debt paid off and have an emergency fund built up – and may be looking to juice your bottom line beyond what vanilla investments like stocks and bonds can offer you. In this case, you may be considering investing [...]

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Getting A Mortgage Today

March 22, 2010

Hello Folks, I’m getting slammed at the University and won’t get a chance to put down a longer, more substantive posting today. Instead, here is a video from Kiplinger’s personal finance. Its on the topic of how the mortgage market has changed in recent years. Some of the highlights: its harder to get a mortgage, [...]

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Housing Market To Double Dip?

March 20, 2010

Hello Folks, This quick video from Meredith Whitney caught my eye. Just as a reminder, Whitney is an independent analyst who called the housing bubble and subsequent crash back in 2008. She’s a smart cookie. In this one her comments echo what I’ve been hearing from Mortgage lenders in the DC area, so it might [...]

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Are You Sure You Want to Invest In Real Estate?

March 18, 2010

Hello Folks, Since we’ve been in the process of buying an investment property, it occurs to me that not everyone realizes the difference between getting an investment and buying a home for yourself. Also, sometimes it seems like new real estate investors often fail to appreciate the complexities and hassles involved in owning property. In [...]

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Economics of a POW Camp

March 16, 2010

In case you were wondering…here is a write up of the some of the basic economics of a World War 2 era prisoner of war camp.

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Wealth is Back, But Not For Everybody

March 16, 2010

Hi All, Well, it had to happen eventually. Evidently after the bloodletting in 2008, wealth is coming back. The Wall Street Journal’s Robert Frank has two great postings on the topic: 1) The US millionaire population jumped 16% in 2009. 2) Resources of the world’s billionaires grew 50% in 2009. Also, the AP is reporting [...]

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IRS Visits Sacramento Carwash in Pursuit of 4 Cents.

March 16, 2010

The Sacramento Bee has the story.

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Real Estate, the DC Market and Why You Need An Inspector

March 15, 2010

Hello Folks, Its a soggy Monday here in the district. For today’s posting I wanted to update you all on our progress in buying our second investment property. Over the past couple of weeks we submitted an offer and got the financing nailed down and we are now moving into the final stages of closing [...]

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How Lehman Hid Its Woes

March 14, 2010

I wanted to share a bit about the recent release of the “coroner’s report” on the demise of Lehman Brothers. A friend of mine actually helped with the 2,200 page summary of the downfall, and I thought you might be interested in the highlights from the New York Times article, “Report Details How Lehman Hid [...]

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Is Bank of America Developing A Pattern of Wrongful Evictions?

March 12, 2010

Good Morning Folks, I was surfing through Yahoo this morning when this video jumped out at me. Evidently, Bank of America has been developing a nasty habit of foreclosing on people accidentally. For example, a few weeks ago in Florida, the bank accidentally seized the home of Charlie and Maria Cardozo. BofA went into the [...]

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