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Len Penzo dot Com

The offbeat personal finance blog for responsible people.

What Goes Around Comes Around: Rising Interest Rates Are Inevitable

By Len Penzo

Last summer my 12-year-old daughter, Nina, was extolling the fashion virtues of her hot pink Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star high-top sneakers, better known to many as simply, "Chucks." What I found amusing was while Nina really thought she was on ...

Continue reading What Goes Around Comes Around: Rising Interest Rates Are Inevitable

March 26, 2012

100 Words On: Why Having an Upside Down Mortgage Ain’t All Bad

By Len Penzo

One of the biggest fears many homeowners have is waking up one day and discovering that they owe more on the mortgage than their house is actually worth. While that may be trouble for those who absolutely positively have to move, it's really no big ...

Continue reading 100 Words On: Why Having an Upside Down Mortgage Ain’t All Bad

January 5, 2012

If It Feels Good Do It: Maybe Strategic Defaults Aren’t So Bad After All

By Len Penzo

I bought my first home in 1990 at the top of the Southern California real estate market and promptly found myself with an "underwater" mortgage. And although I owed more than the home was worth over the next seven long years, I never walked away from ...

Continue reading If It Feels Good Do It: Maybe Strategic Defaults Aren’t So Bad After All

June 6, 2011

Why Marriage Makes It So Hard to Control Remodeling Costs. (Well, Kinda Sorta.)

By Len Penzo

As I've previously mentioned, the Penzo household is in the middle of a long-awaited home renovation project with a reliable contractor. Originally, it was supposed to be a fairly modest kitchen renovation that involved replacing our porcelain ...

Continue reading Why Marriage Makes It So Hard to Control Remodeling Costs. (Well, Kinda Sorta.)

October 6, 2010

Paying Off the Mortgage Early? Not So Fast …

By Len Penzo

In January 2009 I wrote one of my most popular posts to-date entitled Paying Off Your Mortgage Early Is A No-Brainer. In that post I did a detailed analysis that justified why paying down my mortgage was the right thing to do. That Was Then, This ...

Continue reading Paying Off the Mortgage Early? Not So Fast …

June 1, 2009

Using a HELOC as an Alternative to Refinancing

By Len Penzo

Recently I was talking with a buddy of mine, who happens to be a higher-echelon employee for a major bank, about my desire to refinance into a longer-term home loan in order to provide me with additional financial flexibility in the event I ever lost ...

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January 19, 2009

Paying Off Your Mortgage Is a No-Brainer

By Len Penzo

As promised, with our home currently in the process of being refinanced for the fourth time since 1997, I have finished doing an analysis on whether or not to continue prepaying the mortgage early. After running the numbers, I have come to the ...

Continue reading Paying Off Your Mortgage Is a No-Brainer

January 11, 2009

Got a Fixed Rate Mortgage? Root for High Inflation.

By Len Penzo

With all the liquidity that the governments of the world have been releasing into the economy, I believe it will only be a matter of time before we begin to experience a nasty bout of inflation that will force interest rates into territory not seen ...

Continue reading Got a Fixed Rate Mortgage? Root for High Inflation.

January 8, 2009

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