In December, Congress passed the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011, which extended the 2 percentage point payroll tax "holiday" of 2011 into the first two months of 2012. However, to offset the nearly $20 billion cost of the payroll tax cut extension (along with a few other provisions), Congress adjusted the so-called guarantee fee charged by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the FHA, mandating that the fee must rise by at least 10 basis points. The new g-fee increase is set to apply beginning on April 1, 2012 (no fooling!), and its effects are already being felt as borrowers look to set 45- and 60-day rate lock guarantees on current purchases and refinances. The net impact to clients: if there's a purchase or refinance being considered, it could be worth many thousands of dollars to get the loan done as soon as possible.Read More...
Clients who need to improve their prospects for retirement generally have three options: spend less, save more, or retire later. Technically, there is a 4th option - grow faster - but it is typically dismissed due to the risk involved in investing for a higher return. In practice, clients rarely seem to dial up the portfolio risk trying to bridge a financial shortfall in retirement, and taking out a margin loan just to leverage the portfolio to achieve retirement success would most assuredly be deemed imprudent and excessively risky. Yet at the same time, a common recommendation for accumulators trying to bridge the gap is to keep any existing mortgages in place as long as possible, directing available cash flow to the investment portfolio, and giving the client the opportunity to earn the "risk arbitrage" return between the growth on investments and the cost of mortgage interest. There's just one problem: from the perspective of the client's balance sheet, buying stocks on margin and buying stocks "on mortgage" represent the same risk and the same leverage, even though our advice differs. Are we giving advice that contradicts ourselves?
Borrowing money to invest is a risky thing for individuals to do. While it's a common path for businesses - borrowing money to plow into investments, infrastructure, staff, expansion, etc. - it is done in part because business structures allow for limited liability; in other words, we often borrow in business specifically because the debts cannot track back to business owners the way individual borrowing can. Accordingly, for most individuals, the only major debt that is taken at all is a mortgage to purchase a house, and only because that's a "long term" investment (and because we couldn't afford a house any other way); most other forms of individual debt are considered "bad" debt and only used as a necessity to be paid off quickly (e.g., credit cards or auto loans). As a result of these attitudes about debt, I'm not certain I have ever seen a financial planner tell a client "since you're low on cash flow right now, you should take out a loan so you can have money to buy stocks in your 401(k) this year." Tax deferral on retirement contributions aside, it's just viewed as too risky by most to borrow money just to invest in equities in a typical investment account. There's just one problem... by telling clients to keep their mortgages as long as possible while building their retirement accounts, we're doing the exact the same thing: telling clients to invest in the stock market by borrowing. Read More...
