To our friends who are tax and estate planning professionals,

We hope you're staying warm and healthy. Here is a list of articles that caught our eyes recently. We hope you find them interesting and helpful to your practice as well.

It’s hard to believe, but it was only a year ago when a 30-year fixed mortgage rate was around 3%. The sudden and rapid rise of the rate has been unnerving for homebuyers and sellers (and observers) alike. What are we to make of it? Well, we are grateful for our trusted partner and mortgage professional, Scott Bothel of North Pacific Mortgage, for his insight and thoughtful explanation on today’s mortgage environment and what it means for us. 

Have you ever considered inviting your parents to live with you and your children? If so, you’re not alone. Our trusted partner and real estate professional, Brooke Knight of Good Knight Homes, tells us that according to census data, multi-generational households have increased four-fold between 1971 and 2021. We are grateful for her knowledge and willingness to share her insights on building a happy multi-generational home.

As professionals, we are usually quite good at what we do. We can do a lot to help improve our clients' financial situation. Still, we don't know what we don't know. It's important, therefore, to lean on the knowledge of professionals in various disciplines. We asked our trusted partner and a mortgage professional, Doug Moore of The Moore Team, to share his insights on how partnering with other professionals helps clients stay on track with their long- and short-term financial goals.

At its core, retirement planning is simple. You trade income during your working years for income during your non-working years. To do this, you set aside a portion of today's income and accumulate enough so you can live off of it in retirement.

Well, here we are again. This last quarter started on a somewhat positive note with stocks rising until the middle of August. That cheer didn’t last, however, as uncertainties about rising interest rates and the direction of the economy pushed us back to a bit lower than where we started. Bonds followed a similar pattern as folks wrestled with the idea that interest rates would climb higher than had been anticipated earlier this year