Have you noticed that when you search on the web for retirement communities, you will usually find a large number of ‘manufactured’ home developments?

I’ve always had the impression that a ‘manufactured’ home is kinda like a mobile home that has no wheels and isn’t designed to be mobile. What is your impression? Does anyone out there live in/own a manufactured home. How do you think it compares with a tradional ‘brick & stick” home vs. a mobile home?

Some of them come with a respectable parcel of land, but is it owned land or leased land? Is it marketable property? That is, if you become feeble or sick and have to go to a nursing home, can you sell it and get your investment back (assuming no repeat of the recent home value plunge)? Can anyone comment on a recent sale (or lack thereof)?

We’d like to hear from you!

Obviously, not a reality-based question!

I’ve heard the question often. It goes something like this: “I have $X of credit card debt, and while I want to be debt-free, I’m sure I could miss some great investment results if I throw all my money at my credit card debt!”

To me, if you look at the math, it doesn’t make any sense. If you invest in some common stock or common stock funds, you might grow by some percentage as time passes. While you are waiting for time to pass . . . Google these words:  “stocks plunge 2008 2009″. What appears as a result of that search should shake you back to reality! Fact is the market can be volatile. Hopefully, we won’t see the plunge that we witnessed in those years. Investing involves the risk that the same thing could happen — even as you are reading this!

The question behind the question, though, is more like, “Would I borrow money at 20% interest to invest in a market where I could very well lose that much and more?” When you make the choice to not pay down debt in order to use your money for another purpose, it is as if you are borrowing that money again! To be sure, it could go up by twice that rate, but if you’re reading this blog because the name fits you (baby boomer), can you afford this risk? Twenty, ten or maybe even five years ago, your answer might have been clouded by the distance to retirement, but now it should be clouded by the distance you could add to retirement!

Another point of view, to me, is this: What better investment is there where the investment result is guaranteed to be at least twenty percent? Think of it: by paying off a debt accumulating at 20% it is as if you have invested at that rate. A $10,000 debt right now will become $12,000 a year from now. So if you pay it off today, logically, you will have $2,000 more in your asset pocket a year from now.

So how do you accomplish such a feat — paying off debt? There are a few turkeys out their selling bogus software and books teaching you to “borrow your way out of debt” (my words, not theirs!), but there are also quite a few solid sources of wise advice. One of my favorites can be found at: http://www.daveramsey.com while another can be found at http://www.thesimpledollar.com

I frequently refer to each of these often when I discuss money with my friends. Where do you get your advice?