David Garrison

RETIRING INTO HOME OWNERSHIP Over your forty-plus year career on the road as a corporate trainer and coach, it has never made sense for you to invest in a permanent residence. Now, having officially retired two years ago at age 68, you’ve decided to become an “advanced age first time home buyer” (good fodder for […]

 HOME EQUITY INVESTMENT AND REVERSE MORTGAGE — A WORD PAIR THAT IS NOT SYNONYMOUS “Does it really matter if you say “jam” or “jelly”, “college” or “university”, “disinterested” or “uninterested”? Jennifer A. Freeman, writing in wordsmarts.com, thinks it does. “Precise language is the mark of a good writer,” she says. For example, universities offer both undergraduate […]

USING HOME EQUITY TO A HIGHER DEGREE Widowed, and with no children of your own, you have found joy in helping your younger brother, who has very limited means, by contributing towards his one child’s college costs. Highly dedicated to pursuing an advanced degree in aviation engineering, your niece is close to completing her undergraduate […]

HOME EQUITY INVESTMENTS AND REVERSE MORTGAGES — UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE For senior homeowners wishing to gain access to their own housing wealth, a newer financial product gaining some attention is the HEI, or Home Equity Investment, different from a reverse mortgage in several significant ways. A “shared appreciation product”, an HEI lets homeowners get cash […]

HOUSING WEALTH CAN HELP WATERPROOF A HOME  Although your own beautiful, long-time home seems to have come through unscathed, all the stories about White River flooding, with so many Indiana homes being damaged, have made the two of you uneasy, to say the least. Retired now almost a decade, you have both been very pleased […]

HOUSING WEALTH HELPS “FOSTER” GRANDKIDS When each of your son’s daughters was born, you opened a 529 account for them and you kept up the tradition of contributing $3,000 to each of those accounts as a birthday gift. The granddaughters are also named as beneficiaries in your trust documents. Meanwhile, your daughter, who has never […]

SHIFT THE INCOME SOURCE; INVITE “AUNT IRMAA” TO MOVE OUT With each of you retired from long and successful careers in the world of business, you’ve been blessed to be able to enjoy a satisfying standard of living as a couple. Then, some five years ago, an inheritance you received proved more than sufficient to […]

USING HOME TO MAKE AWAY-FROM-HOME MEMORIES ACROSS THE GENERATIONS Still getting used to the retired life on which you embarked just three years ago, you’ve been discussing hosting periodic family vacations to include your two grown children, the grandkids, possibly even inviting both sets of in-laws.  With both of you experienced in project management, this […]

MAKING CHILD’S SECOND TIME A CHARM “A wedding planned in your fifties is a different planning problem from the one the bridal magazines were written for,” Eleanor Wren explains in the If She blog, cautioning couples to “scale down before scaling up” in terms of spending. “Money is better spent buying back time than buying […]