There seems to always be a little truth to every rumor

Engadget has received reports that the next generation iPhone will be called the iPhone HD. This comes a day after The Wall Street Journal posited on some rumors suggesting that Apple will release two different iPhones this year.

While the continuing “will they/won’t they” saga of the CDMA iPhone is far from resolved (and even the Journal is now hedging on the date of a CDMA entry), the name iPhone HD might actually have some merit.

Yesterday, after The Wall Street Journal posted its story, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber dismissively responded to the report — pointing out that it was virtually substance-free in terms of details. He then went on to dispense some information he has heard about the next iPhone.

Namely that:
 It will be based on the A4-family CPU system (meaning it would be part of the same CPU family as the iPad)
 The resolution would be doubled to 960×640
 It would sport a second front-facing camera
 It would support third-party multitasking

Now, how many of these rumors are true is unknown — but Gruber has a pretty good track record when it comes to info like this. Further more, Gruber finds the HD moniker plausible, especially in light of the double resolution display.

Engadget also reports that the iPhone HD (or whatever it ends up being called), will be announced on Tuesday, June 22. Historically, this date falls in line with past iPhone release dates.

One cannot stress enough the importance of having a will and living trust. Nobody likes to think about dying, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen to all of us at some point. In preparing for the inevitable, it’s extremely important to plan so that your final wishes are carried out after you’re gone or incapacitated to the point where you’re unable to communicate your wishes.

Without a will and/or a trust, the courts have rules for determining how your assets are distributed, who custody of your children goes to and what happens if you’re incapacitated (in a coma, on life support, etc.). You don’t have any say in how these rules are applied, nor do any of your family or friends. Also, without a trust your estate must go through the probate process, which often costs in the vicinity of $20,000 and takes 1 to 1 1/2 years to complete.

However, with a will and living trust everything changes. First of all, you make all the rules. You decide who your possessions go to, and under what circumstances. You decide who gets custody of your children. With a living trust, your estate avoids probate entirely, and thus not only are the costs of administering your estate greatly reduced but it’s done right away.

You’ll see online kits for building your own trusts, but due to the complexity of the law and the dire consequences if you make a mistake, I would strongly recommend you work with an attorney who specializes in estate planning. You should expect to pay $1,500 to $2,000 to have this completed, but it is well worth it in the long run.

Paul Parotti, LPL Financial Planner

As I type this I’m sitting in the Trump International hotel with a beautiful view of the strip — But in about 10 minutes from now I’ll be sitting in the sports book with an even better view of dozens of TV’s with all of the basketball games.

If you love the sport of basketball, I highly recommend you come to Vegas one year for March Madness. There’s nothing like it.

This place is a complete madhouse where everybody is going crazy.

People are drunk as can be, throwing hundreds of dollars down on the craps table and common sense has completely gone out the window.

In a nutshell, it reminds me of the housing crisis, where people went nuts and threw caution to the wind. The good thing about Vegas is that tomorrow morning people will only wake up hung over and a few hundred dollars poorer… but the real estate investors who went crazy have ended up bankrupt, losing their life’s savings and, ruining marriages and families.

I’m very thankful I’m not one of them. It’s because I’m very conservative and because I follow my 3-step formula.

Here’s what my 3-Step Real Estate Investing formula is all about:
■Step one is wholesaling.
■Step two is lease options and sub-2 deals that I sell on a rent to own basis
■Step 3 is my buy and hold properties that give me cash flow.
Step one is my cash-now strategy. That way, I always have cash coming in the door. But, I don’t want to be wholesaling when I’m 80 years old so the whole purpose of step one is to give me cash to live on and to pay down my rental properties.

Step two is for larger paydays. I get a small option fee upfront but I get the $30,000 paydays on the back-end. Step two is used when I don’t want to hold a property for the next 30 years and to help me pay day my properties quicker.

Step 3 is the “holy grail” of real estate investing. In my opinion this is what we should all strive to achieve — $10,000 a month in passive income and ten or more properties owned free and clear. But to achieve step three you have to do steps 1 and 2 and pay down the mortgages on the properties over time.

Most importantly, you will be doing all three steps at the same time. Because, if you’re a conservative investor who properly evaluates all of your deals to make sure the numbers work… if you never speculate and always make your money going in… then a few years from now you can have a large passive income stream for the rest of your life.

In fact, I just worked with an investor who now has $9,000 a month of passive income. He doesn’t have a “job” and he doesn’t even do that much investing anymore. He’s content taking it easy, and thanks to his smart planning, that’s exactly what he can do.

Alright, it’s time to go watch basketball. Remember not to go “crazy” with investing and use smart and conservative planning. Save the craziness for Vegas…

Jason Hanson

Some homeowners have a long laundry list of to-do repairs and, interestingly enough, many of those items don’t get addressed until (or if at all) it’s time to sell the house. In hot real estate markets, repairs are sometimes not done before the sale. Remember bidding wars over properties that needed work? Well, today sellers are looking for the advantage that makes their home stand out. Even though housing inventory declined toward the end of last year, it’s expected to rise as more foreclosures tumble into the marketplace this year.

While fixing up a home to sell can be costly, there are some ways to reduce the damage to your wallet. Cheryl Reed from Angie’s List spoke to me about important repairs that shouldn’t be overlooked. They are: changing your furnace air filters regularly, fixing leaky faucets/toilets, repairing caulking issues in the bathroom and defective electrical outlets/wiring.

“Our experts in the heating ventilation air conditioning industry tell us that 60 percent of all their service calls start because it’s a dirty filter issue. If you have a dirty filter, it affects the efficiency of your furnace,” says Reed. She says that it’s a simple and easy repair that improves the air quality and saves you money.
“You can save about $100 a year if you just change those filters when you should.” She recommends checking your air filter every time you get your energy bill. “If it’s dirty and you can tell, you can see it; just switch it out. You can buy a number of air filters ranging from moderately good to really expensive and high efficiency, in terms of cleaning the air. You have a number of different options, depending on your budget,” says Reed. She also says, depending on health conditions of those living in the home, changing filters more frequently might be necessary.

The second repair is annoying and easy to spot. “If you’ve got a leaky faucet or running toilet, that’s going to cost you,” says Reed. “If you don’t get it fixed you’re going to be paying more and more. It can also lead to mold damage. It can lead to a loss of your cabinetry—the flooring in your cabinetry can be rotted away and that can affect your floor underneath and the walls. So you can have a big issue if it’s not fixed soon,” says Reed.

If there are problems with your home when you begin to show it, buyers will spot them. Reed says, “People who come to your house to check out whether they’re going to buy it or not are looking really closely and they’re listening really closely too.” With plenty of housing inventory on the market, buyers are likely to move on if they feel the house needs a lot of repairs.

“You have to put forth your best impression. These small relatively inexpensive fixes are really important,” says Reed.

Dirty tiles and damaged caulking can send a message to buyers that the house may be in need of even bigger repairs. “You’re first going to have an aesthetic issue and second that’s an indication that you’ve got a problem that could lead to mold and nobody wants mold in their house anywhere at all—it will grow if you don’t have proper seals in your bathroom,” says Reed.

“Those are things that you can see every day—sometimes we get so used to seeing them that we forget about them,” says Reed. However, buyers don’t.

Reed offers this advice, “Pretend you’re going to try to buy your own home; what do you see that you wouldn’t tolerate?” She says it’s worth it to take the steps to fix the problems. Buyers don’t want to fix those problems any more than sellers do. Check for defective outlets. Electrical problems are not only irritating but also can be very hazardous. “An electrical fire can destroy your home,” says Reed.

Who should do the job? Of course, saving money is always key. Reed says some of these repairs might be suitable for a handyman but she cautions homeowners to be sure that the level of the repair matches the expertise of the person you hire.

“You’re going to pay more in the end if you don’t check out the person you hire to help you. Make sure that person has a good reputation and if it’s required for him or her to be licensed in your area, you really should a licensed person, even if it’s more expensive,” says Reed. Reed says, you may pay more but you’ll get the job done right the first time.

by Phoebe Chongchua