Kitces.com - Advancing Knowledge in Financial Planning

An Efficient Solution To Implement Intra-Family Mortgage Loan Strategies

January 23, 2013 01:02 pm 34 Comments CATEGORY: Debt & Liabilities

In the ongoing difficult borrowing environment, some potential homebuyers have found the best way to finance a purchase is not from a major commercial bank, but from the "family bank" instead through an intra-family loan. And as long as IRS guidelines are followed, the transaction can be remarkably appealing, with more flexible lending terms, IRS-required Applicable Federal Rates that are still lower than commercial mortgage rates, the potential to still deduct mortgage interest payments for the borrower, avoidance of origination and many other mortgage transaction fees, and the simple benefit that all the interest and principal payments ultimately stay in the family.

A major downside, however, is that to ensure the IRS truly respects the transaction - and to receive some of the tax benefits as well - formalities of the loan should be honored, including drafting a promissory note, recording the mortgage against the residence in the proper jurisdiction, and completing actual payments of interest and/or principal.

Fortunately, a new solution has emerged - a company called National Family Mortgage, that completes all of the required documentation, records the mortgage, helps to service the loan, and even issues the requisite IRS reporting forms, all for a fraction of the cost of a traditional mortgage loan origination fee. While this won't likely mark a great boom in intra-family mortgage lending, it nonetheless makes the strategy far easier for advisors to implement efficiently for clients!Read More...

Why Saying You’re A Fiduciary Destroys Trust Instead Of Building It

January 21, 2013 01:01 pm 12 Comments CATEGORY: Marketing

As financial planning shifts increasingly to a pure fiduciary focus, many advisors have begun to differentiate themselves by explaining to prospective clients their fiduciary obligations, ostensibly in an effort to demonstrate that they are trustworthy. Unfortunately, though, the reality is that saying "You can trust me" is actually a terrible way to establish trust, especially when it's done using complex jargon that most consumers don't even understand! Even worse, in many cases an advisor talking about fiduciary status is less about demonstrating the trustworthiness of the advisor, and more about bashing the competition for not being worthy of trust - despite the fact that may make the advisor appear petty or desperate with little value to offer, and may actually prime clients towards distrust of any advisors! So what should financial planners do instead? Focus on conveying credibility more holistically, which includes a focus not only on motives and intent, but also the advisor's integrity, capabilities to deliver value to the client, and track record for positive financial planning results. And establish your trust and credibility not just by your words, but by your actions and behaviors. Or stated more simply: stop trying to establish client trust by saying you're a fiduciary; instead, build real trust with your clients by actually being one and behaving accordingly!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Jan 19-20) – Practice Management Edition!

January 18, 2013 06:01 pm 3 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's "Practice Management" edition starts off with a nice Journal of Financial Planning Focus article by marketing consultant Stephen Wershing about how to refine your referral process to improve growth, a great list of tools for digital age marketing from technology consultant Bill Winterberg, and a good reminder that digital age marketing strategies should focus not just on building social media followers but ultimately converting them into clients. From there, we look at an interesting article about the rise of "wealth databases" that advisors can engage to find affluent prospective clients, a profile of some firms that are aiming to serve younger clients not just with different services but an entirely different office atmosphere, and a review from Bill Winterberg about the Fox Financial Planning Network and the resources it provides to help firms with workflow efficiency.

We also look at a few articles highlighting some of the difficult challenges that advisors face, including two warnings from both Mark Tibergien and Angie Herbers that the advisor marketplace is becoming more challenging and competitive and that advisors and the vendors who serve them must step up to compete, a discussion from Pinnacle Advisor Solutions highlighting the emerging number of outsourcing providers that are trying to help advisors get past the growth wall, and a look at how some advisors are joining close-knit study groups where they "open the kimono" and share everything in an intimate group setting to get feedback about how to improve their businesses and professional lives.

We wrap up with two interesting articles: the first suggests that while financial planning is slowly moving beyond just focusing on the numbers to look at client personal issues, we're still a long way from truly integrating behavioral finance and a more holistic look at well-being; and another that shows how storytelling may be a more effective way to activate our brains, which is relevant for everything from marketing your services to prospects to helping persuade clients to change their behaviors and implement your recommendations. Enjoy the reading!

Permanent Portability Of The Estate Tax Exemption – Is It Time To Bypass The Bypass Trust For Good?

January 16, 2013 12:01 pm 27 Comments CATEGORY: Estate Planning

As a part of the resolution to the fiscal cliff, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA) extended and made permanent a number of important tax code provisions that impact estate planning, including the now-$5.25 million estate tax exemption (after inflation indexing), and the portability of a deceased spouse's unused exclusion amount (DSUEA) to carry over some or all of that $5.25 million to a surviving spouse. The end result of these changes: married couples can shelter as much as $10.5M of net worth from the estate tax system simply by doing nothing more than leaving everything to a surviving spouse with a simple Will and filing an estate tax return.

The ramifications of these changes will significantly impact estate planning for years to come, as the higher exemption drastically reduces how many people will be subject to the estate tax in the future, and portability in particular renders the use of bypass trusts largely irrelevant. In fact, bypass trusts actually become an adverse strategy for many, given both the direct cash costs of trust drafting and administration, and the indirect income tax consequences like compressed trust income tax brackets and the loss of any step-up in basis at death.

While bypass trusts will still remain relevant in some situations, from their usefulness to shelter future growth from taxation for very high net worth couples and to preserve the GST exemption (which is not portable), to their utility for state estate tax planning. In addition, use of trusts in general will remain relevant for many non-tax reasons, especially asset, divorce, and spendthrift protection. Nonetheless, the bottom line is that with the new rules, esecpially portability of the estate tax exemption, it may be time to bypass the bypass trust for the overwhelming majority of Americans!
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What If Financial Planning Was More Like A Build-A-Bear Experience?

January 14, 2013 01:01 pm 17 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

For most people, financial planning is difficult and complex - which is why they seek out professionals for assistance. Yet while the outcomes of working with a financial planner are positive, the actual experience of going through the financial planning process is not always pleasant. As one focus group researcher put it, "The financial planning experience is a blend of a dental exam, math class, and marriage therapy." And the challenge for growing a financial planning practice continues to become more difficult, given an increasing number of financial planning practitioners competing for business, with less and less differentiation from one firm and advisor to the next.

By contrast, the Build-A-Bear workshop provides an entirely different experience. Notwithstanding the fact that it sells teddy bears - a product long since commoditized - Build-A-Bear differentiates itself not by the product itself, but by the experience that customers engage in to get the teddy bear, as children visiting Build-A-Bear literally build the bear from scratch. The end result - the entire process turns from a few minutes at a cash register or website into a multi-hour interactive experience, the children have a much deeper buy-in to what they get (as their tagline notes, Build-A-Bear is not where teddy bears are bought, but "Where Best Friends Are Made"), and customers spend twice as much or more to get the same commoditized product at the end!

Which raises the question - what if the client financial planning experience was more like a Build-A-Bear experience, where your clients happily pay twice as much for your services and want to spend hours going through the process and the experience of it!?

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Jan 12-13)

January 11, 2013 06:31 pm 7 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with several articles looking at fiduciary and ethical challenges for financial services, from a discussion from the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard about how progress on fiduciary rulemaking has been lagging for several years (and what has to happen in the coming years to get it back on track again), to how hard it is for even an experienced financial planner to find a financial planner to recommend (and how a true license for financial planners could help resolve the issue), to a disturbing trend amongst ETF providers to create marketing materials showing questionable historical performance that may be legal with disclosures but is of questionable ethics. From there, we look at a few business and technology related articles, including a new platform that will allow advisors to create their own ETFs, a discussion of inStream financial planning software that may revolutionize how we use planning software in our practices, a nice discussion of Facebook and where/how it is useful for advisors, and a brief article about how the Social Security administration has expanded its online capabilities (which you can use with your clients to get useful client-specific benefits information). We also look at two more technical articles, one from Wade Pfau discussing the decision for those who want to partially annuitize about whether it's better to do so sooner or later, and an interesting exploration by Martin Shenkman of how estate planning is going to change in 2013 and beyond due to the fiscal cliff legislation.

We wrap up with three interesting articles: the first from Scott MacKillop about how the research that questions the value of active management as being too much "book smarts" and not enough "street smarts" to rely upon in the real world; the second providing a good overview of the recent discussions regarding the Trillion-Dollar Platinum Coin solution to address the debt ceiling; and the last taking a fresh look at the importance of financial planners finding a niche not just as a way to build business but because in the end having a niche is all about finding the intersection between what we love to do, what we're good at, and what people will pay for. Notably, we emphasize for clients the importance of trying to find the right balance to ensure that what they're doing is meaningful both personally and financially; maybe it's time we take the advice ourselves? Enjoy the reading!