How The Tax Changes Signed Into Law Affect You

Want to see a calculator, to determine how the president’s extension today of Bush-era tax cuts impacts your family? Check out this calculator right here. 

Now that doesn’t mean go out and spend the difference on holiday gifts.

Target $3 Appliances? We’ll Find Out Soon

Apparently, an ad was leaked that Target is going to have some crazy deals, including $3 appliances (Target has appliances?) , and a 40″ 1080p Westinghouse HDTV (I had a Westinghouse 33″ HDTV that I bought in 2005, and it’s what I call an “off-brand” but actually wasn’t too shabby) for only $298.

40″ HDTV of any kind for $298 is what I call “all-day” cheap.

We’ll keep an eye on this, and also the website linked within, called http://www.gottadeal.com and here is the Yahoo article with more information about this “leaked” ad from Target.

Tips For Smart Auto Leasing

A couple years ago, it seemed to me like leasing would go by the wayside. People were being smarter with their money, and quite frankly, I’ve always been a believer that the smartest way to own a car, was to buy a quality used vehicle, where someone else had done the “depreciating” part for me.

But with a young family, with constantly changing needs (one kid arrives, surprise – here comes another!), a big dog who travels with us, and always with an eye on keeping my monthly budget low, my mind changed a bit. A big part of it, comes from the fact that lease payments can be incredibly low. In some cases, I’ve seen car leases go for about the same amount many us pay for our cable bills in a month.  I’ve found zero down (nothing out of pocket at driveoff) leases that go for $200/month, on some of the best cars out there.

I’m not going to try to sell anyone on leasing a car. It’s NOT for everybody, but there are some ways to do it, without killing your family budget. The method my family has chosen, is to have one car paid off, and another, leased. Yeah, you always have a car payment, but if you know a few facts about leasing going in, you can do so a little more responsibly.

First of  all when shopping, go to a great website to figure out what people are paying for their vehicles. One that I’ve found is a tremendous help, is at Edmunds.com, which has a wealth of information about buying cars. It’s basically a message board forum, where people tell you around the country, what they’ve paid for leases at recent transactions. It’s also helpful for figuring out what you might pay to buy a car as well.  I’ve provided a link right here. Just click on the car you want, and find out what the latest conversations are on buying and leasing. Remember, lease deals and promotional prices will differ from month to month, and from region to region.

Secondly if you’ve never leased before, it’s important to understand how the prices are determined. You’ll hear about money factors, and residual values, and these are important in determining your monthly price.  A car that will hold it’s value better, say, 36 months down the road, will always give you a better monthly price. As a simple example, a car that’s $30k, that is projected to be worth $20k in 3 years, will cost you less per month than a car that has an MSRP of $25k, that will be worth $10k in 3 years. Why? Think of it this way: you’ve used $10k in value of the first car, but you’v used $15k in value of that second car that you thought was more affordable.  Divide $10k by your 36 months, and you paid $277/month. Divide $15k by 36 months and you paid $416/month. That’s why it’s important to choose wisely if you consider leasing. It’s definitely true the old addage that a car loses thousands of dollars in value, the second you turn out of the dealership parking lot.

Third, don’t assume you’ll just turn the car in at the end of the lease. It’s best to consider all your options, because if you’ve gone over your mileage allotted, for example, you may want to purchase the vehicle. So hopefully you’ve taken good care of it. If you have obvious issues with a car prior to turn in, like bald tires or scratches or dents, shop around and price out your repair options. It will almost certainly cost you more at the dealership if you turn in a car with a dented bumper, than if you’d shopped around and got your own price. Same goes for bald tires, or other issues. 

When you turn in the vehicle, make sure you have a good idea of what the trade-in price of your vehicle is, compared to the buyout price of the vehicle in your lease contract. A lot of dealers use the NADA (National Auto Dealers Assoc.) book to determine value.  They may see issues in your vehicle and adjust the price of your vehicle depending on its condition, but this should give you a general idea of what your car is worth. The last thing you want to do, is walk into a dealer to turn in a $25k vehicle, when you could buy it for $17k. Trust me, it happens all the time. Some dealers are forthright with their customers and will give them the proper value of their vehicle, or credit them the amount toward the purchase or lease of a new vehicle. Others, well, they may not be so willing to fork over some cash. Remember, you could probably buy that vehicle, and then sell it yourself at a profit on someplace like www.autotrader.com, or www.madison.craigslist.org.

Finally, always make sure the lease price you are negotiating is based on the appropriate true market value of the vehicle. If you sign a lease, the lease should be based on a final sales price. It will be there in your contract. It is very unlikely, that this price will match the price on the window sticker. In almost all cases, it should be less, or you aren’t getting a good deal. If it’s a hot vehicle they can hardly keep in stock, paying sticker price is not only possible, it’s likely. That Edmunds site I mentioned above, can also give you an idea of what people are paying in the current market for a particular vehicle. Also — always make sure within the language of that contract that you know exactly how many miles you get per year. This is usually 10k, 12k or 15k per year — and you should know how much of a penalty per mile you’ll pay upon turning the vehicle in. Seeing $0.25/mile might not seem like much, but if you go just 3,000 miles over per year for 3 years, that’s 9,000 miles, and at $.25/mile, that will cost you $2,250 when you turn it in! Not something I want to have to pay! Also make sure you take into consideration, the cost of GAP Insurance and taxes. A lot of companies like Honda Finance, won’t even do leases anymore unless the GAP insurance is included. GAP insurance will cover the gap between what you owe, and what the insurance company covers you for should the vehicle be declared a total loss.

In 2002, I had a car accident where I was hit and my car was totalled by an uninsured driver.  The car was worth $4,000 less than what I owed. Fortunately, unbeknownst to me (and I got LUCKY!) I had GAP insurance included in the lease when I signed on the dotted line. It saved me $4,000. Now I always make it clear that it’s included in the monthly price — and it shouldn’t be but $10-$15/month typically.  Always make sure you’re comparing apples to apples when comparing two cars that you love.  If one price includes GAP and the other doesn’t, that could be the tiebreaker.

Again — I think buying a reliable, sensibly-priced used car is the best practice. But I think there are ways to lease smartly, especially for families whose needs may change every couple years, as mine has.

Children’s Hoodie Recall

Though there are no confirmed injuries, the consumer product safety commission today is issuing a recall, of about 10,000 children’s hoodies and sweatshirts. Apparently, there are drawstrings, at either the waist, or around the hood, that put children at risk of strangulation or entrapment. These are items that were purchased at Burlington Coat Factory, which of course has a pair of stores in the Madison area. Purchases were made over a 14-year-period, from 1995 to 2009, purchase price $7 to $30. For pictures, check out this link, which includes a list of all the brand names involved in the recall.  

For additional information, contact Burlington Coat Factory toll-free at (888) 223-2628 between 7:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. CT Monday through Friday or visit the firm’s website at www.burlingtoncoatfactory.com

The Blog Returns, After Hiatus.

We’ll start regularly posting more information on our On Your Side blog, trying to especially stay up to date with consumer issues. We were a bit overwhelmed before, and were trying to figure out a way to go forward, and convey more information.  We will definitely stay up to speed on recalls, and also try to provide a forum for you to let me know if there is anything out there we can look into. Now that summer is over, we’re going to start taking on more stories, and hopefully getting more feedback from you as well, and whenever possible, if there’s something we can help you with, we will do all we can to do exactly that. Thanks for your patience — always email tips@channel3000.com or me personally at efranke@wisctv.com if you have some concerns we can look into for you.

Virtual Home Staging

Earlier this month, we featured a story on ways to help buyers find a new home, and discussed the “buyers rebate” program, of which there are a few companies locally (see below) who offer up to 2% of the final purchase price back to the buyer at closing. Tonight on News 3 at 6, we went on the other side of the equation, with a little known way that sellers can save a few dollars in the process of selling their home. 

Now we’ve all seen Home and Garden Television Network (HGTV) shows that illustrate how important it is to present your home to its maximum potential when it hits the market.  A staged home, can sell much more quickly than an unstaged home, according to this  Des Moines Register piece from earlier this month. But, staging a house can be expensive. You also have to do furniture rentals on contract, from 30-to-90 days. If you sell your house in 3 weeks, you’re on the hook to rent furniture for 3 more months. According to some sources, it could cost you thousands of dollars to rent furniture.

But what if you could stage your home, with absolutely NO furniture at all? That’s basically what interior designer Tiffany Esser is doing with her firm TiffanysHomeStaging.com. She’s got serious credentials, years of interior design skills (she even teaches it at Madison College), and she’s an accredited home stager, but she’s done away with her stash of furniture, that she used to lug around to properties for area realtors looking to stage their properties.

She does it, with a new technique, based on emerging software, known as Virtual Staging.

It’s pretty simple, she comes in with a fancy camera, takes a panoramic shot of your favorite rooms. Then she takes those pics to her computer, and through special software, stages that picture with the most up-to-date, slick looking, HGTV-after-picture quality furniture.

It’s pretty unbelievable the difference it makes. 

While generally she uses it to stage empty rooms to show the full potential of a space to the buyer, you could obviously empty a room of your Aunt Gertrude’s floral print hand-me-down couch, throw it out in the garage, and then have Tiffany stage it for you. For $75-$90 a room, you could potentially stage 4 or 5 of your sorriest-looking rooms, for about $300-$350. 

Now ethically, I guess some people have their questions that buyers are being lured in unfairly, but I don’t see it. When you stage a home with a staging professional — with actual furniture — you don’t get to keep that furniture when you buy it, any more than you get to keep the “virtual furniture” Esser uses in her shots. Yet, Esser encourages her clients to mention in their MLS listings or FSBO ad, that the pictures are, in fact, virtual. Then she encourages sellers to display the virtual photographs in frames at open houses, to illustrate the functionality of the room when it comes to placing furniture.

Just like the MadCityHomes rebate earlier this month, it’s just another way that consumers can save themselves some dough on the purchase of a home.

Romaine Lettuce Recall

Not that you were going to feed your kids a Caesar Salad (I guess you never know but you’re lucky if they’re eating lettuce!), but there’s a recall out tonight on Romaine lettuce. It was distributed to delis here in Wisconsin, along with a number of other states. So we’ve had popular children’s medicines, popular diapers, and now lettuce, all in the course of 2 or 3 days.

This was is based on an E. coli outbreak linked to the tainted lettuce has sickened at least 19 people in Ohio, New York and Michigan, including students on at least two college campuses, prompting a recall throughout much of the country. We don’t have any reports yet in Wisconsin, and hopefully it’ll stay that way.

Freshway Foods of Sidney, Ohio, says it is recalling romaine lettuce sold in 23 states and the District of Columbia.

Federal health authorities say 12 of those sickened were hospitalized and three reported life-threatening symptoms. The CDC says it is looking at 10 other cases probably linked to the outbreak.

College students at Ohio State in Columbus and Daemen College in Amherst, N.Y., are among those affected, according to local health departments in those states. Nine of the 10 confirmed cases in Michigan were in Washtenaw County, where the University of Michigan is located. It could not be determined immediately, however, whether that school was affected.

Dry Max Diaper Rash Recall

Pampers tried something new with diapers, and got burned. Or, some little bottoms got burned. And now there’s a recall. 

Government safety officials are looking into a handful of reports of severe rashes caused by new types of Pampers diapers.

   The Consumer Product Safety Commission started an investigation this week following complaints of babies and toddlers suffering severe and persistent diaper rashes and blisters that resemble chemical burns.

   In March, Procter & Gamble launched new versions of its Swaddlers and Cruisers diapers in the U.S. The thinner diapers use the company’s Dry Max technology to replace the paper pulp previously used. Parents’ groups blame the change for skin problems.

   The company denies that Dry Max causes chemical burns. A spokesman says it has shared all of its existing safety data with CPSC.

Saving Huge Bucks On A Home Purchase

I realize many of you might have that friendly real estate agent, the one who helped you buy your first home, second home, maybe they helped you sell a couple of houses along the way. He or she is an awesome agent, pays tons of attention to detail, knows how to negotiate, etc. If so, that’s awesome, and I applaud the job they do. They deserve every bit of their commission, especially if they found your house, and helped you through the process of buying it.

However, if you have never had a real estate agent, but know how to run a basic search of Wisconsinhomes.com or one of the outstanding search engines provided locally by Firstweber.com, or Starkhomes.com,(two of my favorites because of the great pics available) then what MadCityHomes.com , and two other local real estate firms have to offer, might be for you.

Stuart and Sheri Meland started up their little operation several years ago. Now, you drive around town, and because of dropping equity, the red, white and blue signs of MadCityHomes can be seen in the yard of about every other house on the market. They charge you $400 to list it, give you some information on comparable sales to help you price it properly, and you basically do the rest. Unlike the old FSBOMad.com site, which works beautifully in hot areas in an up market, this one gets you on the all-important multiple-listing service (MLS).

Last year, Stuart Meland told me about their new HomeFinder service. Traditionally, if you sell a house, you pay 6% in commissions to some realtor, who may or may not do a good job selling it. If the eventual buyer purchases your home with the help of a buyer’s agent (a realtor), half of the seller’s commission goes to the buyer’s agent.

With HomeFinder, the Melands, who are both long-time Madison residents and legitimate realtors, act as the buyer’s agent. Only instead of keeping the 3% all to themselves, they throw you, the buyer, a bone of up to 2%. That can be serious money.

Sheri Meland says the most she’s ever given back at closing, is over $10k. Keep in mind, she still got $5k, so she’s not doing too badly herself. A couple we interviewed last week, Robert and Andrea Beers, bought a $405,000 home in Hawk’s Landing.  In addition to that well-timed buy in one of Madison’s most exclusive golf course communities, they left the closing table with a check for 2% of the purchase price. That’s right, $8100. They were also surprised by the amount of work offered. The service rendered was better, Robert Beers told me, than even some of the “big company” buyer’s agents they had worked with for previous home purchases.

Robert, a business-savvy accountant with an area bank, quickly took that money and smartly paid down his loan even further.

I know many, many agents for the outstanding firms serving Dane County and all of the News 3 viewing area. Many work very hard, and deal with some seriously complicated home purchases. If someone has served you well for years, by all means, loyalty should count for something. However, if you aren’t “attached” to a previous agent, or weren’t happy with the service you received, this might be worth considering.

It’s becoming a trend nationwide, according to this U.S. Justice Department report right here.  Right now MadCityHomes, along with two other firms, MadisonFlatFeeHomes, and OwnersPlusMLS  — are the only ones we know of, who will also give you a rebate on your next home purchase.  But who knows, maybe that will change soon.

Children’s Medicine Recall

No need for panic, regarding a major recall of Children’s Tylenol, Motrin and Benadryl products that so many of us use with our children.  There’s no harmful contaminants in the products, it’s simply a case of FDA guidelines not being met. No one has gotten ill, or injured by consumption of the affected medicines. Apparently, in some of them, little clumps of medicine were overly concentrated in the syrups. 

If you have any questions about the recall, contact the company at 1-888-222-6036 or check out the weblink provided below. If you’re not sure about alternative treatment options, talk to your care provider. Generic equivalents of those drugs are unaffected. It also applies to only liquids, not chewables.

For more information on the specifics behind the massive recall of children’s medicines, including the popular Tylenol, Motrin and Benadryl products, click here.