Financial education: Good for you, good for your clients 

Is it a good time for you to buy investment real estate, or is it a good time to sell? Does a client seem clueless about his or her credit report? 

A new Web site created by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board may help answer some of your complicated financial questions. This free tech tool can serve both you and your clients. The U.S. financial system is a complex series of interactions, influenced not only by Fed actions on interest rates, but on trade balances, federal deficits, money exchange rates, energy prices and a hundred other variables that cause even top economists to fail miserably in their forecasts. Because it's unpredictable and complicated, many people -- and many Realtors -- shy away from understanding how it works. 

Anyone who wants to invest in real estate, however, needs to know the basics. Traditional advice still holds -- buy low and sell high -- but if you can't identify the high and low markets, you can't make rational decisions. Too many consumers don't understand their credit report, and more than one sale has not closed because a buyer ran out and bought a new car, only to find they no longer qualify for the mortgage amount they need.

The new Federal Reserve Web site -- one of the better examples of "your tax dollars at work" -- provides unbiased information for all levels of visitors, from basic educational instruction for less-educated buyers and sellers, to higher-level instruction on personal financial security. Located at www.FederalReserveEducation.org, the site could even be considered interesting to trivia buffs, explaining things such as how a personal check goes from a retail store to your bank, and how the U.S. mints money. 

"The Federal Reserve has a long history of promoting economic education and financial literacy," said Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in a statement debuting the Web site. "This new online tool offers students easier access to a wealth of information in the areas of economics, banking and financial services."

Copyright 2005 FAR