There are several ways to commute to San Francisco from Monday through Friday. These are bus, ferry, bicycle and, most obviously, your car. And, for many, the most impressive sights during their commute is the truly stunning Golden Gate Bridge. An interesting piece of information about the bridge is that the Chronicle called it a thirty-five million dollar steel harp at the time it opened in 1937. Source of information: www.motorvista.com.

To many Californians, driving ones own car is the most attractive option since the actual commute may not be the only travel plans for any given day. Perhaps a trip to the gym, a lunch date, and a business meeting are part of your schedule. Often, these may be arranged handily by taxi or public transportation, such as the bus or a picturesque cable car!

According to a Web site called Motor Vista, and the year 2000 Census figures, 86% of all commuters in Kentfield ride to work in a car. Those who commute to work from Kentfield typically spend forty-five to fifty-nine minutes getting there. And, of the estimated 2,757 workers living in Kentfield, an amazing 92% took the trip solo, meaning they didnt travel in the HOV lanes to get there faster.

Except for a chauffeured limo, Golden Gate Transit offers what most find the most attractive option ” being driven from Point A to Point B in an air-conditioned bus. While far from glamorous, these buses are quite dependable and have restrooms aboard.

During the work week, Golden Gate Transit runs often from 4:42 to 9:03 in the morning and from 2:56 to 6:56 in the afternoon/early evening. The bus takes about one hour from two stops in Kentfield to the Folsom and 7th Street stop in San Francisco. Probably the only concern you might have during the height of rush hour is whether youll be able to locate a seat. To see the bus schedules, all you have to do is Google Golden Gate Transit.

Then there is the ferry! Golden Gate Ferry offers service from Larkspur, which is 1.9 miles, or a mere five minutes from Kentfield in normal traffic. Naturally, you would expect it to be a longer trip at the height of rush hour. There is plenty of parking at the Larkspur Ferry lot.

The Ferry takes you via San Francisco Bay to the San Francisco Ferry Building on the Embarcadero, which is a hop, skip and a jump from the Financial District. The Ferry ride takes about half an hour and is extremely pleasant in any weather, unless you decide to ride outside the protected areas of the boat. For the schedule, just Google Golden Gate Ferry.

For those enterprising and audacious Kentfield bicyclists, the trip to San Franciscos Financial District could take even less time, particularly if you are a highly competitive cyclist. A detailed map of the bike path of the 22.9 mile trip is located on the Web site www.bikely.com. But, remember: safety first!

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People tend to take out adjustable rate mortgages when interest rates get lower. The interest rate in these loans can rise and fall, fluctuating with the prime interest rate. What has occurred in recent times is that, when interest rates were lower, lots of individuals took out adjustable rate mortgages whose interest rates have now risen along with the prime interest rate. This has further resulted in higher monthly payments on loans that have caused some people to have their homes foreclosed on.

The rate of real estate foreclosures is generally the same throughout the entire country. When foreclosures start to occur in your local area, however, many may be filed within a relatively short period of time.

Even though it is true that a family whose home is foreclosed on should not feel like they are the only ones with this problem, this rarely makes anyone feel better about the situation. It can be less embarrassing to know that lots of other people are dealing with the same issue, but it is not less painful.

The American dream can quickly turn into a nightmare in the wake of real estate foreclosures and with most families, the initial thought is to do anything that it takes to save the family homestead. Unfortunately, in many cases the reason they are facing foreclosure is due to their current income to debt ratio and assuming more debt is not the right answer to getting out of their dilemma.

Foreclosure Will Not Stop If You Ignore It

If you keep good track of your finances, you will probably see foreclosure coming before it actually starts to happen. Some warning signs include missing utility bills to make mortgage payments and then missing mortgage payments to make the late utility bills. Ignoring such clear indicators of financial trouble is not a wise choice and will not prevent foreclosure.

Of course, a person can eliminate the threat of home foreclosure most quickly by simply paying the money that they owe their lender. Since the person cannot always do this, though, they will many times just keep doing what they can to pay as many of their bills as possible until they find another way to rectify the situation.

Unless they can pay their lender all of their past due payments or somehow work out a compromised payment plan with the lender, homeowners may not be able to find any way to stop the foreclosure process.

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Renting your property can be intimidating if you’re not completely sure the usual practices surrounding it. You may need support in all the aspects of renting, from the beginning stages of marketing it to the later stages of maintaining a good relationship with your tenants.

You don’t have to be alone, there are several Utah property management companies whose job is to make sure you have support in getting your place rented out in a timely manner with quality tenants and other needs. For example, KeyRenter provides an owner-tenant agreement contract that is detailed and clear and provides a 12-point background check along with other property management help.

They also provide 24/7 on-call support by calling their (800) number and also provides a 24/7 maintenance crew for those occasional maintenance needs of rental homes. Utah has property management companies that charge eight to 10 percent of your rental price as a monthly fee to provide management. However, Keyrenter.com provides a flat fee of $75/month for services. This is a great deal for those who have a high-priced house they are renting. If you have a home renting for $1,500 and have to pay 10 percent ($150) a month to a Utah property management, then KeyRenter is the better deal charging only $75 a month.

Compared to all the other Utah property management companies, Keyrenter is the most inexpensive out of all of them. Not only do they provide 24/7 support for your rental property, but they also handle leasing needs such as sign and lockbox installations, pre-negotiating, rent analysis, and advice.

They also handle property management of mailing late notices, handling tenant/owner/property issues, and eviction administration if needed. Another benefit is that Keyrenter provides accounting services, that way you’ll have an organized monthly accounting statements and someone to turn to with financial questions about your property.

Having 24/7 support while renting your property is a great thing to have. You never know what issues or questions that may come up where you have to turn to a professional for answers. Maintenance issues can occur to your rental property while a tenant is living there that needs to be looked at immediately. If KeyRenter is your Utah property management company, you would be assured that things would be handled in a timely manner by experts, so you won’t have to worry. You’ll receive 24/7 support and not have to be alone and guessing what you’re suppose to do as a rental property owner.

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My retirement projections are all wrong! They were based on annual returns of 8% to 10%. That is what I was told I could expect. How many of you are facing the above situation? Well, we are now in a new era and there are new questions to be asked. What are you going to do?

No one is going to look out for you better than YOU! You can no longer rely solely on the advice of your stock broker or financial advisor. You need to take control of your investments.

You as an investor must train yourself to think differently. You might find that you can no longer afford to wait until losing stocks to recover, you know, those that you are emotionally tied to. That is fine. You realize that you need to make a change. Who cares how those positive investment returns come. What is important is that they do come.

The average investor needs to change the way he thinks. We need to teach ourselves to invest not with emotion, but with common sense. I treat my investing activities like a business. If a particular trade is not working as I had out as planned, I close it out and move on.

My real estate investor clients have told me that the profit is made at the purchase of a property, not on the resale. Can that be applied to the stock market? Sure, my clients do that very thing.

A change in thinking will shift your focus from hoping for a particular trades increase in value to monitoring the trade during its expected life. I say expected life because that is known prior to entering into the trade. Yes, you will have a definite exit strategy!

All trades have a life cycle. You need to teach yourself to operate your investing activities like a business, watching the trade through its life cycle. I can assure you that you will feel in control and not at the whim of the stock market.

Surprisingly, there are stock market investing strategies that allow you significantly more control over the outcome. The stock markets most successful investors do not just hope things go their way. They have tools at their disposal and they use those tools to give them the best chance of success.

Successful investors use strategies that tip the odds in their favor, and they have learned to treat investing as a business. What are these strategies? Well, that is beyond the scope of this article. However, in order to find the success you are looking for you can start by changing the way you think.

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Term of the Day for Thursday, July 30, 2009

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