Recent Blog Posts
Everyone Wins When Landlords Help Tenants Boost Their Credit Score
Despite the fact that home ownership is becoming unaffordable for an increasing number of people, the economics of residential rentals please no one, regardless of whether it is a mom-and-pop landlord renting out a finished basement or a large company managing a building with hundreds of units. The rent payments that landlords collect from… Read More »
What Is Legal When It Comes to Screening Prospective Tenants?
Vacancies are a landlord’s worst nightmare, so why is housing so hard to find in Washington, D.C.? Prospective tenants must demonstrate to the landlord that they will consistently be able to make rent payments; this usually means showing proof of employment and income. Sure, every landlord forms a first impression about how much or… Read More »
Is Delaying Retirement a Good Estate Planning Strategy?
Everyone’s bucket list is unique, but it is unlikely that anyone’s bucket list contains an item that says “outlive my savings.” Monthly Social Security checks are getting smaller for subsequent classes of retirees, and many middle-aged adults have little or no retirement savings, despite having been in the workforce consistently since they were in… Read More »
Everyone Loses When Landlords of Unlicensed Properties Try to Collect Rent
Rent is prohibitively expensive these days. To be approved to rent an apartment in a building managed by a reputable company, you have to be so wealthy that, 15 years ago, your income level would have gotten you approved for a home mortgage. The safest rental agreements are the ones where the landlord and… Read More »
Yikes! Maryland Is Among the Top 5 Most Expensive States to Retire
Unless your goal is to create generational wealth or to use it as an income-generating asset, then selling your empty nest and moving somewhere more affordable makes the most financial sense. There is no reason to live inside the Beltway, where the housing prices are astronomical, once you have retired from your inside the… Read More »
Skilled Nursing Facilities and Your Maryland Estate Plan
If you have never had to think about the differences among a nursing home, an assisted living facility, a memory care facility, a skilled nursing facility, and hospice care, consider yourself lucky. It means that you are young enough and healthy enough not to have suffered a medical issue where the best-case scenario is… Read More »
The Estate Plan Backup Plan
Wishes are an effective way to start a long-term project. Watch any episode of Shark Tank or any documentary about a successful artist or innovator, and you will hear stories of how someone wished to follow the example of a particular extraordinary person or wished to invent something that did not yet exist but… Read More »
How Much Does It Cost to Retire in Maryland?
A lot of things lose their mystique as you age. When you were a child, and you saw a pint of ice cream in the supermarket, having enough money to buy the pint of ice cream and no one to stop you from eating it in one sitting seemed like the coolest thing in… Read More »
The Trouble With Unoccupied Real Estate Properties
If you own a rental property, nothing stresses you out more than the times when the property is sitting vacant. As annoying as it is when tenants complain about the property you are renting to them, as expensive at it is to repair the properties in a timely fashion, and as exhausting as it… Read More »
Collecting Outstanding Debts During Probate
The only thing more annoying than debt is all the picky rules that relate to seeking payment of debts. Debt collectors can contact you on social media, but only if the messages are not visible to others in your contacts and only if the debt collectors are transparent about their purposes; by this logic,… Read More »