Word: plan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Equally important: a cottage in the mountains or a house on the beach where you plan to spend the rest of your days doesn't have to be subjected to the same rigorous evaluation as other investments. In theory, your retirement house won't be sold until you're not here to worry about it anymore. What do you care about the rate of return? You're buying a lifestyle, not a bond...
...keeping the second-home market alive. Last year, even as sales of primary residences fell, vacation-home sales rose nearly 5%, says the National Association of Realtors. The typical buyer of a vacation home was 44; a third of those people said they plan to move to the home full time later...
None of this means you should be rash. The whole point of buying while the market is soft is to have time to think things through. Second homes come with myriad expenses and headaches. Can you really afford it? How will you feel if you drain your 401(k) plan to buy a second home (not recommended) and then stocks take off? What if moving day arrives and you find you no longer want to live there? Sort it out now--and then take the plunge. Here are some other reasons that buying a vacation home now to live...
...downside to the second plan: Seizing northern Gaza would mean destroying hundreds of Palestinian houses and displacing thousands of families. It could also raise an international outcry that Israel was imposing a collective punishment on Gazans for having backed Hamas in last January's free elections. It is almost certain that President Abbas, despite his loathing of Hamas, would walk away from U.S. sponsored peace talks with the Israelis in protest. Hamas might also pull out longer-range missiles from its arsenal, able to strike as far as the Israeli port of Ashkelon...
...Plan Three, said to be favored by Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, calls for occasional ground strikes into Gaza and an increase in assassinations of Hamas's political and military leadership. "It wouldn't be Ismael Haniyeh [the Hamas leader and ex-Prime Minister], but it would be those right under him," one source told TIME. Until now, Israel has refrained from targeting Hamas's political leadership since they are not involved in the rocket attacks on Israel - the rocketeers usually belong to Islamic Jihad and other smaller Palestinian militant groups. "We want Hamas on the run so that...