Ask a trust officer: Housing prices

DEAR TRUST OFFICER:

Do you think home prices have reached a bottom? Is a house a good investment again?

—HOPEFUL HOMEOWNER

DEAR HOPEFUL:

One key measure that many experts look to for gauging the health of the housing market is the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home-price index. Data for the latest available month, August 2009, showed an overall increase of 1.2% from month-earlier levels, the fourth straight monthly rise. That’s good news.

Year-end planning: Questions for you and your financial advisor

As another year comes to a close, you will have the chance to make many decisions that affect your financial well-being in the year ahead. In particular, these last months are the last chance that you will have for moves that will alter your 2009 tax obligations. This year’s financial market roller coaster may make this unusually complicated for some taxpayers.

• Should you take additional capital gains or losses? As you review your investment activity for 2009, note any additional sales that seem appropriate from an investment standpoint—then check with your

Munis still looking good, despite new risks

Historically, municipal bonds have been the Mr. Rogers of investment options: a gentle, risk-free, tax-exempt way to protect wealth.
Then came the fourth quarter of 2008, with its stock market crash and Round One of fed-eral government bailouts. Distressed institutional investors pulled out of the muni market, mak-ing the problem worse.

A rocky road

This year, rising unemployment derailed state income tax revenue streams, and the resulting con-sumer cutback has harmed sales tax flows. California headlines have declared that the state is teetering on

The “Jewish clause”

Americans are free to dispose of their property at death in any manner that they see fit, as a general rule (with the exception that a surviving spouse may not be disinherited). There is no requirement, for example, that children or grandchildren be treated fairly, or even rationally. On the other hand, conditions on an inheritance that have the tendency to induce spouses to get divorced or live apart are void because they are against public policy, and so will not be enforced. The Illinois Supreme Court was recently called upon to balance these two competing interests.

Max Feinberg’s will established two trusts for his wife, Erla, for her life. By so doing, he secured for the family the benefit of two exemptions from the federal estate tax. At Erla’s death the trusts were to