Disowning Abortion

This is Jamin Baxter and I serve as Business Development Director for Moody Radio. The only reason we're able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ on the radio is because of financial support from listeners like you. We also have businesses support us too, like United Faith Mortgage.

Faith and family is at their core. It's why they choose to be such a close partner with our station. It's why they specifically advertise on Christian radio stations across the country.

It's why father and son John and Ryan still lead the company to this day. Check out United Faith Mortgage and their direct lender advantage at UnitedFaithMortgage.com. Thanks to you and to United Faith Mortgage for supporting Moody Radio. United Faith Mortgage is a DBA of United Mortgage Corp. 25 Melville Park Road, Melville, New York. Licensed mortgage banker. For all licensing information, go to NMLSConsumerAccess.org, corporate NMLS number 1330, equal housing lender.

Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. This is Jamin Baxter and I serve as Business Development Director for Moody Radio. The only reason we're able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ on the radio is because of financial support from listeners like you. We also have businesses support us too, like United Faith Mortgage.

Faith and family is at their core. It's why they choose to be such a close partner with our station. It's why they specifically advertise on Christian radio stations across the country.

It's why father and son John and Ryan still lead the company to this day. Check out United Faith Mortgage and their direct lender advantage at UnitedFaithMortgage.com. Thanks to you and to United Faith Mortgage for supporting Moody Radio. United Faith Mortgage is a DBA of United Mortgage Corp. 25 Melville Park Road, Melville, New York. Licensed mortgage banker. For all licensing information, go to NMLSConsumerAccess.org, corporate NMLS number 1330, equal housing lender.

Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. The world's been at war with God's kingdom since the fall. The newest battleground is investing. Do you know which side you're on? Hi, I'm Rob West.

Too many Christians are unintentionally funding the other side. Today, I'll talk with Robert Netsley about realigning your portfolio to do kingdom work, specifically in the area of abortion. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, it's always a pleasure to welcome our friend Robert Netsley back to the program. Robert's the CEO of Inspire Investing, an underwriter of MoneyWise Live.

You might think of them as our intelligence unit for keeping track of what the other side is up to and helping us plan strategy for winning the war of values-based investing. Robert, great to have you back with us. I am always pleased to be here with you, Rob.

Thanks for having me again. Absolutely. Robert, I know you've been following the controversy over the Texas heartbeat bill, but specifically through the lens of companies that support the pro-abortion side.

What can you tell us? The Texas heartbeat bill effectively bans abortions as early as six weeks, putting a major dent in abortion activists' desires to have abortion very late in the term and often cases. While those of us in the pro-life side are celebrating this legislation, there have been some companies such as Yellblip, Salesforce, there's others who have come out in opposition of this law and trying to lobby the legislators that be to overturn this law. We've been following that as investors, as pro-life investors, biblical investors, and doing what we can to engage some of these companies and push in on that a little bit and wondering why they would take such a stance on an issue such as abortion. Yeah. Let's talk about that for a moment because obviously as a part of your work, you've been doing quite a bit of corporate engagement. In your opinion, why do companies that have nothing to do with abortion come out publicly opposing something like a pro-life legislation in the Texas bill?

Yeah. It doesn't really make sense on the surface oftentimes. You might consider an abortion drug manufacturer a likely candidate to oppose such legislation, but Yelp, Lyft, Salesforce, Patagonia, these are some of the companies that have signed on to the so-called don't ban equality in Texas statement trying to overturn this legislation. It doesn't really line up with their business. When you read the statements from their CEOs like Marc Benioff with Salesforce and others, they obviously are coming from a personal far left perspective on politics and what they consider to be equal rights and things of that nature. It's really diametrically opposed to a lot of their employees, their employee resource groups, the folks that are actually working in their establishments in Texas who are in support of this bill. One of the more curious parts of this is that companies like Salesforce who have recently moved out of downtown San Francisco effectively and dispersed into places like Texas for improved business environment because of the conservative policies and everything that goes along with these more family-friendly, business-friendly policies are now in Texas, and they're now complaining about it being so conservative and trying to lobby for things like abortion when they could have just gone back to California.

It doesn't really make much sense that they left a very liberal, progressive environment because it was basically bad for business, drawn to places like Texas, Florida, Idaho, and now trying to lobby to make that just another California. It doesn't really make any sense from a business perspective. That's the kind of communication that we're trying to have with these companies. As we push in and hopefully get a little common sense in the conversation, I'm happy to talk more about that after the break. Very good. That's the key, conversation with these companies that looks like corporate engagement.

You as an owner have the opportunity to do that. We'll talk about how you can respond and much more just around the corner. Robert Natsley, CEO of Inspire Investing is our guest for this segment. This is MoneyWise Live, and we'll be back with much more.

Stay with us. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. Our guest today is Robert Natsley, CEO of Inspire Investing and underwriter of this program.

You can learn more at inspireinvesting.com. We're talking today about corporate engagement, specifically companies that have been outspoken in their opposition to the Texas heartbeat bill, which effectively bans abortions after as early as six weeks. Robert, you mentioned a few of the companies that have been kind of out front in their opposition and perhaps why they might do that, even though their businesses have nothing to do with this topic. Let's talk for a moment about our response.

How can we as investors respond to these companies and what's important for us to know? That's really the question, right? Because it's easy to complain or gripe, you know, or sit around and try to solve the problems of the world on an armchair. But really, the role of Christians, right, is to be salt and light in the world.

And we need to not just talk about things, but we need to engage with the world around us in a way that glorifies Christ and helps people see the light of Christ, ultimately. And so, as investors, we try to do exactly that. And there's a couple of ways that we can respond and engage with these companies. I think the first kind of knee-jerk reaction that people have is just to, you know, say, I don't like that company. I'm not going to shop there anymore.

And there's a time and a place for that. However, it may not be the most effective at getting the company to actually change anything. The other way, as an investor, is to just reach out and engage as a shareholder. These companies have investor relations departments with people whose full-time job is to take phone calls and emails from people like you who own shares or possibly might want to own shares if the company, you know, were to listen to your opinions.

And so, at Inspire Investing, we do a lot of shareholder engagement. And specifically around this Texas heartbeat bill, you know, we're just reaching out on phone calls and emails to investor relations. And we're asking them about why they made the decision to sign on to this, you know, don't ban equality in Texas statement in opposition of the heartbeat bill. We hear them out, whatever their answer may be. And then we just seek to, you know, provide some common sense response, provide some feedback from their faith- based investor population.

You know, we understand that they may have certain political views that they're used to having in policy and, you know, in their headquarters in San Francisco. However, when we're talking about Texas and they just passed this law and it has nothing to do with their business and as faith-based investors, we actually are in favor of that law. And we would like the companies that we invest in to not oppose things that are important to us. And we'd like the company to consider our points of view as faith-based investors. And oftentimes, companies are very open to having these conversations and more receptive than you might think. We've had some success stories over the past years that God's been gracious to give us. We're hopeful for more, particularly in this case with the heartbeat bill. And just as we prayerfully reach out, you know, whether the company listens or not, our job is just to be faithful and to really be the voice of grace and truth in these corporations.

Yeah, that's right. And as you said, as owners of these companies, every one of our listeners who perhaps own some of the names you mentioned and others have the opportunity to express their values to investor relations. Let's talk more broadly about the abortion industry and how it can find its way into our investments. Robert, can you give us some examples? Absolutely.

And to start, the easiest way is to go to inspireinsight.com and search your mutual funds or ticker symbols of your stocks. And we made it very easy to see if there's exposure to the abortion industry. And there's several ways that a company can be involved in abortion. Abortion drug manufacturing, of course, comes to mind.

It's a very straightforward option. And however, there's also facilities that perform abortion. So for-profit hospitals or medical clinics, sometimes real estate investment trusts that own these buildings would have exposure to that industry. Companies can also be involved in legislation and promotion as we're talking about here with the heartbeat bill. So a company that makes tennis shoes has nothing to do with the abortion industry. However, they choose to support legislation or oppose legislation, pro-life legislation in this case.

So that's an option. There's also philanthropy. So the company that donates money to Planned Parenthood or what have you. And there's also biotech companies and research companies that may use embryonic stem cells or similar stem cell lines in their research that is implicated in the abortion industry.

So there's lots of different ways. And it can be very difficult to look into your mutual fund manually and figure that out, which is why we've made inspireinsight.com available and free. So you can just type in a ticker symbol and then just look for abortion and click on the button. And you can see all the nitty-gritty details of what the companies that you own and your mutual fund, your 401K or IRA, what have you, are doing from a values-based perspective. And then you can reach out and engage with these companies or take other action as you see fit. Yeah, inspireinsight.com.

It's a great free tool. Beyond that, just arming yourself with the information, Robert, how else can investors, faith-based investors, go on the offensive? Well, it really starts with knowing what you own and realizing that you're a steward of God's resources and taking that seriously. What's in your portfolio?

Most of us have no idea unless we've looked into a site like inspireinsight.com before. And so really knowing what you own is the first and foremost and most important part of the process. Once you understand what's in your portfolio, good, bad, and ugly, then you can take those steps like engagement or you may choose to sell that investment and then buy a different investment that's more in line with physical values. You can also tell other people about it.

That's a big one. More people need to have this awareness that there are all sorts of potentially nasty things lurking in their portfolio that they just kind of are clueless. And unless companies start to realize that the investing public cares and is actually going to make investing decisions based on their deeply-held faith-based values, not a whole lot is going to change without that widespread awareness. And we are seeing just an explosion of the biblically responsible faith-based investing movement right now where so many people are becoming more aware every day. And so you can be part of that movement just by sharing the story with your friends, sharinginspireinsight.com with your friends, getting the word out. That's really the crux is awareness and helping other people become more aware.

Very good. And the bottom line is you really can make a difference. I know, Robert, you've shared in previous broadcasts some incredible success stories.

Lord willing, there'll be many more ahead that we can unpack. Thanks for stopping by today. Great information. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Robert Netzle, CEO of Inspire Investing, has been our guest today.

You can get more information at inspireinvesting.com or their sister site for evaluating companies, inspireinsight.com. This is MoneyWise Live. We'll be back with much more after this. Stay with us. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. I'm Rob West, your host.

So glad you're along with us today. In just a moment, we'll turn our attention to your calls and questions. Here's the number with lines open 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. We started today by talking about faith-based investing and exciting and growing segment of the investment landscape and whether your convictions align with avoiding companies that are misaligned with your values or embracing companies, specifically doing a kingdom work, or perhaps, as Robert Netzle was talking about today, advocating using your company ownership as an investor, as an owner of a share or more of a particular company to express your values to investor relations and ultimately to the leadership of that company. We'd love for you to explore this exciting area of investing. Inspireinvesting.com, praxismutualfunds.com, eventideinvestments would be great.

Look at these, explore them, and decide how perhaps you want to be a part of faith-based investing, and we'll continue to talk more about it in the days ahead. All right, we're going to head to the phones. 800-525-7000 with your questions on anything financial. We begin today in Pennsylvania. Mary, thank you for your patience.

How can I help you? Oh, hi. Yes, Rob. I have a company matched 401k through Vanguard. My question is about making sure that my 401k investments match my Christian values. So I recently felt convicted when I got a flyer from Care Net because I was not aware of which companies are being supported with my 401k contributions. And I shuddered thinking that my 401k money could be used to support things like abortion, especially abortion, alcohol, tobacco, things like that, that I would never want to support. So I tried doing some research through Vanguard's website, but the information they provided was rather general and did not list specific stocks or companies.

I tried calling the customer service line and expressed my concerns, and they only gave me a material pamphlet that was equally as confusing and vague. Because of this, I moved my entire balance to a money market fund at the advice of a friend who handles investments. He said that it was the best option considering my concerns, because it mainly invests in US Treasuries. But I don't know if that's the most financially wise thing to do. So my question would be, is there a better option as far as these plans and how to either determine where the money is actually going? Or if there's a better option for investing entirely? Yeah. Well, I appreciate, Mary, where you're at and your desire to be found faithful as a steward. And obviously, you have a conviction around this related to the investment positions you're taking and what's behind those companies, both their primary business activities or perhaps even how they're using their corporate profits.

A couple of thoughts. Number one would be to gain more insight into what companies you actually own. There is a great free tool out there. And it's actually been designed and built by the gentleman's company we just had on earlier today, Robert Netsley, you'll find it at inspire insight.com, inspire insight.com, you'll be able to type in the ticker symbols of any of those mutual funds that you own, and see a listing of the companies in them. And then as you click further into those companies, you can get the inspire insight score, which would give you a sense of, you know, how they stack up in terms of the issues that would be most important to believers in terms of their values. And you can then make a decision as to whether or not you're comfortable with those holdings. Beyond that, what you might want to do is think about the other option, which is advocacy. So as you own any of these companies, whether that's through mutual fund ownership or direct ownership, you have the ability to express your values through, you know, proxy voting, but also contacting investor relations and letting them know that perhaps things they're doing are misaligned with your values. And you have concerns about that. As a shareholder, they'll absolutely hear you out.

And I can tell you that if more and more believers would do that, we would be able to have a pretty significant impact. I think in addition to that, Mary, I would be looking for particular investment families inside your 401k that are specifically faith based investments. So I mentioned a few of them earlier. For instance, Eventide would be a great one, the Eventide fund family, you'll find them at invest eventide.com. They're specifically designing funds that not only are screening out the kinds of companies you're talking about, but screening in companies that are making an impact in the world and specifically a kingdom impact. Praxis mutual funds would be another fund family. The Inspire ETFs, exchange traded funds, would be a great example of what you're describing here.

And there are others. So I think that's kind of perhaps your next step is to look at what funds you have available, where you can rely on those fund managers to both select the companies that you're looking for and to advocate on your behalf as a shareholder to express your Christian values. So I would perhaps take that as your next step to both learn about the funds that you have through inspireinsight.com and then specifically seek out some of those fund families I mentioned that I think would be a lot more, well, absolutely would be aligned with your faith.

Does all that make sense though? Yes, thank you so much. Okay, you're welcome.

Listen, keep us updated on this journey, Mary, because I'm confident that I'm confident that you'll find some investments that can give you both a phenomenal return so you can compound this money over time, but where you can feel really good that you are following your convictions and allowing your values to be reflected in your investments. We appreciate you listening and calling today. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. We've got some lines open.

We've got just about a minute before our next break. Mike in Alabama, how can I help you, sir? Hey, I was wondering about a 401k rollover.

Is there a way to invest in strictly dividend producing companies or a dividend class of companies and just taking the monthly dividends off of the top and leaving the principal alone? Yes, the question would be the tax implications of that. What is your age, Mike? I'll be 59 years young come December. This is something I'm looking at down the road. Okay, very good. Yeah, you can invest a rollover IRA in really any stock bond or mutual fund.

So I would look at soundmindinvesting.org for some suggestions through their Soundmind Investing newsletter, and you can pick ETFs, mutual funds, or direct stocks that are dividend focused. You stay on the line. We'll talk a bit more off the air, and we're going to pause for a brief break. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. We'll be right back.

Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. I'm Rob West, your host, and we're taking your calls and questions on anything financial. We'd love to hear from you.

What's on your mind today? Give us a call. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. Whether it's saving or investing, perhaps it's your credit score, paying down that debt, whatever it might be, we'd love to hear from you. 800-525-7000. Let's head to Houston, Texas. John, thank you for calling today, sir. How can I help you?

Yes, good afternoon. I would like to know what are the best scholarships out there for a single parent? Are there any particular scholarships that would be able... And you're looking specifically, obviously, for undergraduate scholarships, is that right? Yes, undergraduate, yes.

Yeah. You know, there are so many today, and many of them do focus on a particular segment of the population, and so I would actually go to work on that. You know, really a great starting point would just be to go to amazon.com and look for some of the handbooks that are out there that are published every year with the latest scholarship information. They'll do a deep dive into all of the scholarships that are available, who qualifies for them, how much is needed, and it's updated every year. And there's some wonderful resources out there that could help you dial into the particular scholarships that would be most applicable to you. So that would be my starting place is to find a great resource like that.

And, you know, using the user ratings, you can find out which ones have, you know, been most highly rated and therefore have some really quality information. Beyond that, you could look at the financial aid office at the college or school you're talking to. A high school counselor would be great. U.S. Department of Labor's free scholarship search tool would be another resource you could take advantage of. And then obviously you could also visit your library if you didn't want to buy one of these books and perhaps check out one of these scholarship resources in your local library.

I think the key here is to really do your homework, spend the time. I've said this before, you know, my wife was able to get over $100,000 in scholarships, single parent home. And really the key for her was she and her mom and her sisters turned the living room into a scholarship factory, researching and applying for scholarships and grants, and it paid off. And I think, you know, that's the key for so many folks is to be able to spend the time so you can see the results. So, John, you check that out.

Let's see what you find and keep us posted on your progress. And we appreciate you checking in with us today. 800-525-7000. Neil is in Joliet, Illinois. Go ahead, Neil.

Yeah, Rob, I'm glad for taking my call. My wife and I have some double, either double E or triple E savings bonds that are about 30 years old. They've matured. We're trying to figure out what to do with them, whether to renew them or trade them in. But it used to be you went to a Federal Reserve Bank, but I don't know if you still have to. And how do you go about changing the status on those?

Yes. Well, I think I probably would because, you know, we're talking about a pretty meager amount that these are typically yielding. You know, I'm thinking annual rate of 0.1 percent, which you can do better than that in a high yield savings account, at least get up to 0.5. Your local bank could redeem these. I'd start, though, at treasurydirect.gov, where you can actually put in the QSIP numbers and find out exactly what these bonds are worth and then use that to go from there.

You can also calculate the interest and therefore the taxes that need to be set aside on any earnings that you have. But I'd rather than rolling these over is probably take these, redeem them and look for a better place, depending upon your time frame. If, you know, this is money you need to just protect because it's less than five years, you could look at a high yield savings account like Ally Bank or Marcus.

If you have a longer time horizon, then obviously you could put that to work in stock bonds or mutual funds. But I think the key is, let's start to figure out what you have. What's it worth? What is it going to take to redeem it?

What taxes need to be paid on that? And then go from there. And again, that website treasurydirect.gov and we appreciate your call today.

To Macedonia, Ohio. Hi, Leon, how can I help you, sir? Hey, how are you doing? I'm taking my call. I was calling on the theme of faith-based investing or values-based investing, thinking as a strategy, would it be wise to put long-term investments into several local small businesses where you'd be able to talk to and know the owners and their values and intentions directly versus a diversified portfolio in stocks, other assets?

Yeah, you know, you certainly could, Leon. I mean, the only concern about that is, number one, just how much risk are you taking? You know, with small businesses, obviously, you know, you're more highly concentrated as opposed to being diversified. You know, we know 80% of new small businesses are going to fail. And so that's a concern.

They're typically very illiquid. So that's another concern just in terms of your ability to get your capital back out. Now, the benefit is you're supporting a local business, which I absolutely agree with. Secondly, as you said, you could have, you know, greater access to their values and practices to know what it is you're supporting. But I think with the new faith-based investing landscape that's emerging, Leon, you could have the best of both worlds where you're investing in world-class investments that are award-winning with phenomenal returns, but where you have the liquidity of being able to sell out of a mutual fund each day, and where you're knowing that the companies are specifically selected, not just for the merits of the business, but also the fact that they're making a social or a kingdom impact. And, you know, with a lot of transparency, in fact, Praxis Mutual Funds, one of the fund families that's an underwriter of this program, just recently came out with their Praxis Impact Report, where you can actually read the stories of the investments that they've made and the impact that it's had in people's lives here in the United States and around the world. So perhaps, you know, that's an option you should at least consider because, again, you'll be much more diversified, you'll have that liquidity, and you'll know that your dollars are making an impact at the same time.

Does that make sense to you? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Absolutely.

Check out investeventide.com, Inspire Investing, and Praxis Mutual Funds, and I think you'll find what you're looking for. On to West Palm Beach, Florida. Hi, Deanne. How can I help you? It's actually Dean. Dean, I misread that. That was my fault.

I'm sorry. Go right ahead. Okay, I appreciate you taking the call, and I'm not quite sure how to word this, but I'm just wondering if there's some kind of tool to protect or at least state your intentions for something like a living trust without having gone through the whole process yet. So we're taking a trip in a couple of days. We don't have the... We haven't met with an attorney to create the living trust yet, but if something were to happen to us on a trip, how do we set something in motion so that our intentions would be honored anyway?

Is there a way to do that? The key, Dean, is to make sure you have a valid will in place. You wouldn't be able to establish a trust and fund it in time, but a will would at least make sure that the next steward is chosen and you can pass your assets without the probate court making those decisions for you.

In the absence of visiting with an attorney, there's some great online tools that would help you do that, even free of cost. You stay on the line. We'll talk about that. We appreciate your call. We'll be back with much more on MoneyWise Live.

We've got some lines open, 800-525-7000. This is biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. I'm Rob West. Welcome to MoneyWise Live.

Thanks for joining us today, Rob West, your host. We're taking your calls and questions on anything financial, applying the truth of God's word to your financial decisions so you can move forward with confidence. Here on this program, we recognize that money issues are hard issues. At the end of the day, the way we handle our money is one of the clearest indicators into what we value, where we've placed our trust.

The question is, what story does our money management tell? Are we holding everything loosely, living with contentment and giving generously, recognizing that we have an abundance before the first dollar? We have a Savior that has been provided for us. God Himself sent His Son to die to pay the penalty for our sins, that we might be reconciled to Him and have life. And when we place our trust in Jesus, we can know that we've been cleansed of those sins that separate us from the Father. Well, that in and of itself is enough to recognize that we have an abundance. And we're then charged with being found faithful with managing God's resources.

The good news is, the Bible is chock full of wisdom on how we can manage God's money, more than 2,300 verses, and we'll try to apply those principles to what you're dealing with today. Let's head back to the phones to Rome, Georgia. Hi Pam, thank you for holding. How can we help you?

Hi, how are you today? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. So I'm in the military and I worked at a civilian company for 17 years at a college, so I have a TIAA-CREF account there. Yes. And in the military you can put money into a TSP account as well, on top of your retirement.

So when I retire in one to two years, should I take those two accounts and combine those? Yes. It's a one account? Yeah. So you can roll a TSP account into another tax-deferred vehicle.

So what is the TIAA-CREF account? Is that still there? Are you actively contributing to that? No, it's just been rolling over and, you know, building on what's in there.

I haven't taken anything out. Okay, but that one came from a previous employer? Correct, a college where I worked at. Okay, very good. Yeah, so all of these, both the TSP account and the TIAA-CREF account that was established through that college, can both be rolled out to a rollover IRA, and then those funds would be put together. At that point, you could then hire an investment advisor to manage that for you and select the investments on your behalf with your goals and objectives in mind.

That's probably what I would recommend. What would be the value of those two accounts once they're put together? What would be the total value? I would say I don't really know how much, I know this is crazy, I don't really know how much I have in my TSP, but I have almost 200 in my TIAA-CREF account.

Okay, very good. So obviously you've amassed quite a bit there and that's where I think, again, having some professional expertise to make those buy and sell decisions for you makes a lot of sense. So I would visit next with a couple of Certified Kingdom Advisors there in your area. You can go to our website MoneyWiseLive.org, click find a CKA. I'd interview two or three and then once you select an advisor, if that's the direction you go, then he or she would be able to open the account, the new IRA, and then help you initiate the rollovers for the TSP and the TIAA-CREF account. And then once the funds are deposited, then they would be invested.

That would not be a taxable event because you're not withdrawing anything from those tax-deferred accounts and then that money could be invested at that point, all right? Okay, so go and look for what on the website? Yeah, go to MoneyWiseLive.org and click the button that says Find a CKA, and that stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor.

This is going to be a professional investment advisor in your area, Pam, that also has been trained to bring biblically wise financial advice and would align with your values as a Christian. Okay, all right. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. All right. We appreciate your call today.

To Bermuda. Hi, Marlene. How can I help? Good evening. Thank you so much for taking my call. It should be simple.

I'm just struggling with it. My mother passed away earlier this year and there are four heirs, my two nephews, myself, and one of my brothers. We're coming to the final stages of the estate and just trying to determine what is the smartest thing to do with this asset.

I'd like to keep it. They would like, I believe they would like their share, but they'd like to hold on to it instead of cashing out now. They'd like to cash out in three years when it would come due to them because they would come of age for her will. I'm concerned that, is it wise to wait three years or do I pay them out now and protect it? My concern is that three years from now, the housing market may tank and they get less than they would today.

Yeah. And are you wanting to sell out right now or did I hear you say you want to hang on to the property? I'd like to hold on to the property and they would like their share at some point, but not today. And that's my concern is to protect their asset. What I don't want to happen is 36 months from now, you know, I should have given it to them three years ago.

Suggestions? Well, you know, nobody knows what the future holds. Is it likely that the housing market is valued less three years from now than it is today?

Probably. The housing market has been an incredible run on the upside, fueled by these very low interest rates, which I believe are headed higher and fueled by largely just supply and demand. There's just not been enough homes in inventory, and that's driven up the market partly due to the pandemic. But also the millennials are reaching the age where they're wanting to have a little more space and they're having children, and that's caused single family home purchases to rise. So as a result of all that, we've seen some incredible rises.

The national average in terms of how far the housing market is overvalued is somewhere around five or six percent beyond what it reasonably should be today. So could we see a decline in the future? It's certainly possible, perhaps even probable. The question is, we don't know. We don't know. And so is now a good time to maximize the value of this asset?

I think it is. I think the question is just, you know, are you wanting to go ahead and do that? So you lock in that price and then you've got to decide. Do you have the ability to buy them out either through a mortgage or cash or because they're wanting to wait and you're wanting to keep the property anyway? Could you, you know, do you want to just wait and see what happens and then buy them out down the road? Those are really the two options you're considering, is that right?

That's correct. And that's my concern is cash out now. And I would be able to do that and put that into their trust account and manage it for them until they come of age or hold on to it and then, you know, cash out when the house is you.

And I agree with you when the house may be valued left. So and I don't want to have that. I don't want to have that hanging over my head and feel that that strikes quite honestly.

Well, I can certainly understand that. I mean, obviously, you know, we're talking a good while down the road in three years. So I think, you know, if you have a peace of mind about going ahead and locking in that value now and paying for it, you know, are you going to overpay? Perhaps a little bit.

But, you know, it wouldn't be enough to be concerned about. And I think it would give you peace of mind to know that you've done the right thing. You've locked it in.

They've maximized the value of the asset. And then it can be managed from this point. And you have the home that you're wanting to hang on to anyway.

And so I think, you know, what I'm hearing in your voice is you'd feel better about doing that now. So that down the road, if we were in a recession, if the housing market had taken a hit. And by the way, I don't think we're in a bubble situation. But, you know, we could see some slight declines over a three year period, just given what we've seen in the last several years. If that would give you some angst to feel like, you know, you've taken advantage of them, even though I know that's not your heart, then it sounds like you'd feel better just doing that now so that everybody's on the same page about, we made the decision, we locked it in. And we don't have to wonder where the market's headed and whether that was a good decision or a bad one. Correct.

Thank you. Because the part, the other part, one last part of it is, is that if we kept the house, their expectation is that they would receive rent from me for the next three years. And I'm struggling with that. That would be the right thing to do. But again, I'd be paying rent on something in their portion.

Well, that's right. And not only that, but rental, you know, you'd have to establish a fair market rental price and rents are sky high right now. And so just, you know, for you to feel like you're paying market rates for the rent, you're going to be paying a premium on that.

So you might as well just go and buy out the house, you take ownership of it, which is what you want to do anyway. And then let them make their decisions from here on out, whether you're helping them manage that or they're finding somebody else to do that. So I feel like that's the best decision, Marlene, just given what I've heard from you today. And I hope that helps you. Lord bless you and make this a matter of prayer. Ask the Lord to give you some wisdom.

Quickly to Lakeland, Florida. Catherine, I just have a few seconds. How can I help you? Awesome.

Thank you for taking the call. I just want to know your side of cryptocurrency. My husband has become really consumed by it and I don't know if I should get on board to support him or if I can give him some more faith based investment ideas. Yeah. In terms of so he's wanting to invest in cryptocurrency.

He's never taken any interest in financial management at all. Now, all of a sudden it's like gung ho on crypto and I've done a lot of research on it and I'm not seeing it go anywhere. Sure. Well, I mean, clearly it's, you know, the hot commodity quote unquote right now because I mean, well, for instance, just today Bitcoin reached a new all time high. Today there was the launch of the ETF that tracks the futures of Bitcoin.

And so it's kind of the rage right now. I just put it in that highly speculative category, Catherine, that I think is not the steady plotting approach that we read about in God's Word. I'd take a much more vanilla flavored, long term diversified approach to investing. Stay on the line. We'll talk a bit more off the air. Unfortunately, we're out of time.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. I want to say thank you to Dan and Amy. I want to say thank you to Robert as well. And thank you for being here. Come back and join us tomorrow, will you? We'll see you then. God bless you.