Author: News Room

Our goal here at Credible Operations, Inc., NMLS Number 1681276, referred to as “Credible” below, is to give you the tools and confidence you need to improve your finances. Although we do promote products from our partner lenders who compensate us for our services, all opinions are our own. Rates for well-qualified borrowers using the Credible marketplace to refinance student loans fell this week for 10-year fixed-rate loans, and rose for 5-year variable-rate loans. For borrowers with credit scores of 720 or higher who used the Credible marketplace to select a lender during the week of March 20, 2023:Rates on…

More homebuyers are on the hunt for housing as mortgage rates and home prices — though still elevated — continue to wane, Redfin recently reported.  According to the brokerage’s latest data, mortgage purchase applications slipped for the fourth consecutive week. Additionally, during the week ending March 26, Redfin’s Homebuyer Demand Index reached its highest level since May 2022. The index is a seasonally adjusted measure of requests for tours, home offers or requests to talk to an agency about a home search.  LOWER MORTGAGE RATES JUICES HOMEBUYERS San Francisco Redfin agent Ali Mafi said the majority of the calls coming in…

After having collectively saved trillions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans are seeing inflation and other factors eating into their savings.  Americans had already spent about 35% of pandemic-era savings as of mid-January, according to an estimate by Goldman Sachs. By the end of 2023, they would have depleted about 65% of those extra savings, Goldman Sachs forecasted. Americans put away an estimated $2.3 trillion to savings since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research by Oxford Economics. For many Americans, those extra funds came from a combination of stimulus checks, unemployment benefits and reduced spending due to nationwide lockdown…

Utah has adopted the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (UPEPA), as found at Utah.Stat. § 78B-25-101, et seq., and which becomes effective for actions brought on or after May 3, 2023. This represents a substantial upgrade for Utah’s Anti-SLAPP Act. The prior Utah Anti-SLAPP law had been rated as “D-” (almost worthless) by the Institute for Free Speech which tracks such things. The adoption of the UPEPA should take Utah into the “A-” range under the IFS’s ratings with the rest of the UPEPA states. Utah now joins Hawaii, Kentucky and Washington in the adoption of the UPEPA. What makes…

Any CEO who wants to convert his company to a stakeholder model will need patience and faith during the early years. A company that has long devoted itself to short-term gains may find itself going through shareholder withdrawal—literally and figuratively—during the shift. When a company decides to invest in its future—through more equitable employee compensation, rebuilding R&D, capital investment in workplace improvements, and so on—shareholders who have come to rely on quarterly rewards may divest or overtly oppose the conversion to a more responsible model for profit. Long-term thinking requires patient supporters rather than those with a close eye on…

Amazon has owned the ecommerce space for so long that it’s been hard to imagine a serious challenger, but that’s been changing in the past year. The pace of change quickened recently with Walmart’s relaunch of its shopping portal to make it simpler, cleaner, and to feature more relevant seasonal merchandise — in other words, more like Amazon. Alongside a long list of tech companies, both retailers have announced layoffs, but with very different motivations. Amazon is hunkering down. Beginning last fall, the company reportedly shed some 18,000 workers, with another 9,000 job cuts reported last month. The company has…

So I spent a couple of hours, that I will never get back, watching coverage of the arraignment of our once and aspiring future President Donald Trump. Sensible tax oriented CPAs were probably for the most part more productively occupied what with that deadline coming up in a couple of weeks. The most interesting thing I took away from the coverage was the remark by DA Alvin Bragg that in Manhattan prosecuting people for falsifying business records happens a lot. Then I read the indictment and the supporting statement of facts and got a bit of a shock as I…

Introduction Estate planning is primarily about the transmission of wealth. However, it should be about much more. Many people don’t want to delve into family skeletons or tackle emotionally charged issues. But the reality is that if you fail to plan, or fail to address tough issues, or ignore practical planning logic, you might be planting the seeds for family dysfunction or much worse. While the list of ways to mess up your kids with a poorly handled estate plan is long, hopefully the following will help you avoid many of the traps. Not Planning Flexibly If you want any…

New York City’s real estate market reacted strongly to the economic uncertainty of 2023’s first quarter. Many buyers throughout our market put their plans on hold in the wake of the 50 basis point increase in the Fed rate during the month of December (which followed several 75 basis point increases). Mortgage rates continued to rise, the stock market fell, and transaction volume, which had been slipping throughout the second half of 2022, remained weak in January. Surprisingly, it then began to strengthen in February, and improved even more in March. That said, the deals which got made correlated strongly…

In the April 2018 AAII Journal, there was an article by Meir Statman entitled “Are You Spending Too Little in Retirement?” in which Statman describes clients who continue their thrifty ways into their later years. I’ve already critiqued some of his views in “Dying Young Is Not A Retirement Plan” and “Your Children Are Not Entitled To Your Retirement Savings.” In the first article in this series, I rebuked Statman’s suggestion that you can cut loose on your spending because you likely won’t live as long as you think. In the second article, I addressed Statman’s irresponsible exaltation of giving…