DEPARTING IS SWEET SORROW

Various family members left for home yesterday afternoon. Our vacation has been fun and it is a shame it has to end. My youngest daughter will stay until Sunday and my wife and I will stay until Tuesday. This vacation was the Hanes "family reunion". The third week of July it will be the "Miller Family's Turn".

Few of you appreciate the advantages of sharing ownership in a beach property with 9 other families. It is a sweet deal because the overhead cost are dramatically reduced, tax advantages on second homes are better than on rental property and because 10 families can all get great weeks with conflicts in usage being extremely rare.

As a retired investor, I would be happy to talk with you about investments in real estate or in stocks or bonds. In full disclosure, my wife and I are in the process of selling off the 29 properties that we leased or owned. Running a rental business involves more work and heartaches than we can recount but owning a second home at the beach is hard to beat.

Our top investment advise, no matter the investment vehicle, is to keep the transaction costs as low as possible. If you can buy real estate without paying a 6% real estate commission, you will be a giant step ahead. If you buy stocks without paying hidden mutual fund charges or high brokerage commissions, the long-term difference in your account value will be astounding.

Use the SEC mutual fund calculator to see how much hidden fees will cost you over long periods of time. On a $100,000 account over 40 years the fee cost can exceed $400,000.00!

Posting will continue to be limited for the next few days. I can talk on the phone while sitting in a rocking chair watching the waves roll-in. Call my office at 336-778-0543 9 to 4 if you want to chat.

BUY THE BULL--YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THE AVERAGE GAIN OVER THE NEXT 3 YEARS!