Who is the best financial advisor in The Villages?
 

We are new in town looking for good advisor who will keep our best interest at heart.

Your best choice is to do it yourself through vanguard or Schwab. Keep it simple use passive index funds. Alternatively you could use Vanguards financial consulting service.

http://https://investor.vanguard.com/financial-advisor/financial-advice

Keep you fees as low as you can. There is no magic greater returns that an expensive (over .5%) adviser can give you. As I've said before over a ten year period simple index investing beats managed investments over 80% of the time. No body knows what the markets will do in the future. a simple three fund portfolio rebalanced once a year is all one needs.

http://http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio

You can set up these accounts with an appropriate equites/bonds percentage that makes you sleep well.

If you want to use an advisor in the Villages, Charles Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is a low cost alternative. They invest in a broad range of index funds setup by your risk tolerance and age. They say it's got no fees, but require you to keep a portion in their money market account which is in effect a fee. If you need to see a local representative they have an office in Sumter Landing.

I Am not a financial adviser. So the advice here is only my personal opinion.

What do you want?
Just watch investments? Take above advice. Also look at robo advisors from same firms.

Since you are not looking to to self invest (smart move) Fross and Fross appears to be the cream of the crop in The Villages.

Fan of Maxman's advice. Indexing thru Vanguard has worked well for us over the past 40 years.

The best one is the one who helps you meet your financial goals. The good ones will offer to show you the track record on dollars invested vs plan one, five and ten years.

Also be on the look out for how they make their money with you as a client.

Usually two ways. One is flat fee based and this is usually more than made up in the invested returns. The second which I recommend against are those who make their money off the product they invest your money in. Here the incentive is for them to sell you something vs is it the best for your investment startegy.

Check the bigger banks like Wells Fargo and Chase who both have private banking investment and securities advisors....who are tied into their national securities investment and fund management systems.

Good Luck.

Lastly, don't limit your possibilities by only looking at the private investors that happen to be in TV.

Save yourself a lot of money and invest yourself in target date mutual funds - let the real experts pick the stocks and bonds, they know a lot more than any local adviser.
Set up a no load fund portfolio with Vanguard, Fidelity or T Rowe Price - you can't go wrong of any of these three.
I learned my lesson about expert broker advise long ago. Fortunately long enough ago to allow me to retire now.

Unless you desire to be very very pro-active with your porfolio I would not suggest handling it on your own. The market has been extrermely difficult to read in recent years, so for myself a financial advisor was necessary. She has structured a portfolio of stocks and bonds that have exceeded our goals the past 8 years. The advisor is Jayne Wakeman with Edward Jones in The Villages. I have dealt with numerous advisors to date and she is by far the best.

One question do you have any American funds through Edward Jones?

Edward Jones costs more in several ways:

1. The front load buying the fund (up to 5%)

2. Funds with higher expense ratios (1 to 2%)

3. Sales load for reinvesting capital gains or dividends (up to 5%)

Also, notice how frequently agents take family vacation trips internationally (probably some sort of sales incentive from Edward Jones or mutual fund family). Ultimately the investor is paying for these too.

Very pleased with Tom Ruggie at Ruggie Wealth Management. The great news is they now have an office in Pinellas Plaza.

Ruggie Wealth Management - Tavares, Florida

If your regular bank have investment people meet with them. My advice is to pick three or four companies or people, meet with them and make up your own mind.
Everyone has different needs,expectations, and goals for their money.

Interesting article on Edward jones
http://http://advisorhubinc.com/the-scientologists-of-the-financial-industryseriously/

disagree
 

I totally disagree that Fross and Fross are good. They are not fee only....they will put you into things that pay them high commissions. I realized that after going to the polo fields to watch them play polo....the amount of money under their control at a 1% fee couldn't possible pay for all they have.

go to Fidelity in Lake Sumter Landing. If you put your money with them you can either have them manage it for a fee, or they will advise you free and you have to make the changes. They also have low cost index funds.

In my opinion, you are your own best financial adviser. There is plenty of library and internet material available to help you make good choices about investment. You do not have to pay someone a large fee to (1) determine your goals, (2) determine your risk tolerance, (3) select diversified investments. Keep your money and find some solid index funds. Just open an investment account where they don't charge you unless you trade. Yes, you can. Really, you can. No, seriously, you can. It's not rocket science.

I like Morgan Stanley but my rep is out of Winter Park. He will come to the Villages to meet with you. I have been with him since 1992 and very pleased. He understand how to do proper asset allocations for retired folks.