Part 2️⃣ of our mini-series on the Level 5 Diploma in Business Administration & Management 🎓.
In this part, discover:
✅ Job roles you can apply for after completing Level 5 💼
✅ How this qualification is recognized worldwide 🌍
✅ Pathway to Level 6 Diplomas or even MBA Programs 🎓
📢 Offered by Be Safe Training & Services – your trusted provider of UK-recognized qualifications.
“It’s a very, very, very big market,” he said. “In fact, it’s a bigger market than the overall traditional market as a whole.”
The distribution gap between reverse and conventional is part of what he’s hoping to address, Peskin said. Reverse mortgages are offered by approximately 2% of originators while HELOCs are offered by the other 98%, and building the product as a HELOC is an attempt to reach the broader originator base.
“Reverse mortgages are also offered by a very small subset of the overall market,” Peskin said. “We wanted to build a chassis that would give access to the bigger, broader market with a program that is what people are used to.”
Rising costs are adding urgency to the equity access problem, he said. HOA fees, homeowners insurance, real estate taxes, and everyday expenses are all moving higher, squeezing fixed-income homeowners who have wealth on paper but limited monthly cash flow.
“Why not tap into the largest asset you have in a comfortable way?” he said. “Just because it’s illiquid doesn’t mean you can’t have a creative way to tap into it that gives you control. And it’s a lot better than going out and ringing up $50,000 in credit card debt at 20%.”
Each quarter, the BiggerPockets Pulse survey captures how investors in our community feel about and behave in the current market.Our Q3 2026 results paint a profile of a resilient investor who continues to seek opportunities despite a difficult rate environment and geopolitical shocks.
However, there has been a gradual decline in overall sentiment since the beginning of the year. In Q1, the Pulse Index was 108 points. In Q2, the Pulse Index clocked in at 102 points. Today, the Index has fallen to 96 points. It’s still what we consider a neutral rating, but the downward trend remains steady.
Driving worsening sentiment are several challenges, most notably the difficulty of finding deals and securing capital. Additionally, investors are increasingly concerned about holding costs, including rising insurance premiums, property taxes, and maintenance expenses that erode cash flow.
Below are the results and highlights of the survey.
Behavior and Sentiment
When asked how conditions for residential real estate investing compare to the last 12 months, most investors settled into the middle. In Q3, 55% said conditions are about the same as before, up from 47.5% in Q2 and 43.5% in Q1. The share who feel conditions are better than before slipped to 19%, down from 25.5% last quarter, while 21.5% said things are worse than before.
That steady climb in the “about the same” answer says a lot. Investors increasingly see the market as holding in place, which fits the gradual cooling in overall sentiment we’ve tracked all year.
The outlook for the next 12 months tells the same story. A full 55% expect conditions to stay about the same, a sharp jump from 41% in Q2 and 36% in Q1. Only 19% expect conditions to improve somewhat, down from 35% last quarter, and just 1.5% expect a significant improvement. On the other side, 21% expect conditions to decline somewhat, and 4% expect a significant decline.
The takeaway is a flattening of expectations. Fewer investors are betting on a rebound anytime soon and are instead bracing for more of the same.
Even with that cautious mood, most investors are still playing offense. 53% say their main priority over the next 12 months is to increase their portfolio size, up from 45% in Q2, though shy of Q1’s 57%. Another 34% plan to optimize their existing portfolio, 12.5% are waiting and seeing, and only 1% intend to shrink.
This implies that this group is not sitting on the sidelines. They are focused on putting capital to work and hunting for deals that make sense, even in a down market.
Long-term rentals remain the strategy investors trust most, chosen by 55% in Q3 as the most successful strategy over the next 12 months, up from 48% in Q2 and back near Q1 levels. Owner-occupied house hacking came in a distant second at 18%, followed by mid-term rentals at just under 10% and house flipping at around 8.5%. Short-term rentals continue to lose favor, sitting at just 3%.
The message is consistency. When the market feels uncertain, investors lean toward the durable cash flow and lower turnover of long-term rentals.
Current Challenge
“Difficulty finding good deals” is now the single biggest challenge investors report, chosen by nearly 30% of respondents in Q3, up from 26% in Q2. “Rising expenses” like insurance and taxes and “lack of capital for new deals” follow close behind, each landing around 25%. High mortgage rates, once the defining complaint, have faded to 13%.
That tells a clear story. Investors are being squeezed by supply and cost at the same time. There is a shortage of inventory at prices that pencil out, and even when a deal appears, holding costs and thin financing options stand in the way of closing it.
Future Challenge
Projecting 12 months ahead, the picture shifts only slightly. Difficulty finding good deals remains at the top, at 28.5%, while rising expenses hold firm at around 25.5%. Lack of capital eases from 25% today to 22% as a future concern, while flat or falling rent prices climb to 7.5%, roughly double their share as a current challenge.
Conversely, it shows that investors feel increasingly confident about raising capital over time. Their main worry moves to what happens after closing, from rising insurance premiums and reassessed tax bills to the risk of soft rents, all factors they have little control over and all of which cut into cash flow.
Biggest Opportunity
On the opportunity side, investors are focused on leverage and price. The biggest perceived opportunity in Q3 is a better ability to negotiate, chosen by 27.5%. Falling prices climbed to 24%, up from 17.5% in Q2, as more investors come to see a softer market as a buyer’s advantage. Increasing inventory and better deal flow followed at 21.5%.
Lower mortgage rates, once a top hope at 28.5% back in Q1, dropped to 12.5%. That decline says investors have largely stopped waiting for rate relief and are instead looking to win on price and terms.
Market Outlook
On home prices, the consensus is a holding pattern. 46% of investors expect prices to stay flat nationally over the next 12 months, up from 42% in Q2 and just 28.5% in Q1. Beyond that, opinion is split evenly, with 25% expecting a mild decrease and 23% expecting a mild increase. Very few expect a swing of more than 5% in either direction.
Rents follow a similar pattern. 45% expect rent prices to stay flat, while 38% expect a modest increase between 0% and 5%. Only 12.5% expect a mild decrease. Taken together, investors see rents as flat to slightly higher, a steadier picture than the one they paint for home prices.
Rate expectations have drifted higher all year. 45% of investors now expect the average 30-year fixed rate to land between 6% and 6.49% a year from now, and another 30% expect it to sit between 6.5% and 6.99%. Compare that to Q1, when nearly 40% expected a rate in the 5.5%-5.99% range. Today, only 17.5% hold that view. Investors are underwriting higher rates as the new norm.
When it comes to geography, the Midwest is the clear favorite. 45% of investors named it the region with the best investing conditions in Q3, easily ahead of Southeast and Florida at 22.5% and Southwest and Texas at 13%. The Midwest’s appeal has held steady across all three quarters, reflecting its reputation for affordability and cash flow.
Views of the Fed and Inflation
Most investors are reserving judgment on Kevin Warsh and his potential impact on the Federal Reserve. 67% are neutral on what his tenure as chairman would mean for real estate investing. Another 21.5% see his leadership as positive and 5% as very positive, while just 5% see it as negative and 2% as very negative.
The neutrality hints at a wait-and-see attitude toward the Fed’s next moves on interest rates, perhaps with the ongoing Iran war in mind. It also shows that most investors are more concerned with what they can control than with what they cannot, and that personalities rank low on their list of considerations.
Rising inflation is weighing on investors’ plans. 43% say it makes them slightly less likely to invest over the next three months, and another 9.5% say much less likely. 38% are neutral, while only about 10% say it makes them more likely to invest.
That balance reflects real caution. For most investors, higher costs eat into margins and give them pause, even as a small share still leans into real estate as a hedge against rising prices, heeding Warren Buffett’s advice to be greedy only when others are fearful.
Geopolitics and AI
Worry about the war in Iran has eased since last quarter. In Q3, 47% of investors expect the war to have a neutral impact on the real estate market over the next three months, up sharply from 32.5% in Q2. The share expecting a negative impact fell to 41.5% from 52%, and those expecting a very negative impact dropped to 7.5% from 15%.
The shift suggests investors have absorbed the initial shock and no longer see the conflict as the market threat they did a quarter ago.
Views on AI job displacement are more divided. Nearly half of investors (49.5%) expect it to have a neutral impact on housing and rental demand over the next 12 months, down from 56% in Q2. The share expecting a negative impact rose to 37.5%, while those expecting a positive impact also grew, reaching 10%. The extremes shrank, with very negative falling to 2.5%.
Taken together, more investors are forming an opinion on AI, and while the balance tilts toward concern, a growing minority sees potential upside for housing demand.
About the survey
BiggerPockets is a community of retail real estate investors with over 3 million members who, collectively, make up the largest bloc of residential property investors in the United States. The BiggerPockets Pulse is a quarterly survey that measures and shares the sentiment and intended behavior of this important economic force.
Investors in this survey were solidly middle-aged. Just over half (53%) fall between 45 and 64, and the largest single age group (30%) is 45 to 54. Older investors are well represented, with 14% aged 65 or older, while only 8% are under 35 and just 1% are under 25. The sample was also heavily male-skewed, with 73% of respondents reporting as male and 27% as female.
Household income in the sample was at the higher end of national incomes, but not concentrated in any single group. The largest single group, 27%, earns between $100,000 and $150,000, and another 19% earn $300,000 or more per year. Just over a third fall somewhere between $150,000 and $300,000, and relatively few households, just 3%, earn below $50,000.
The respondents are seasoned investors for the most part. Four in ten own between two and five investment properties, and another one in five own six or more. About a quarter (26%) do not currently own an investment property, a reminder that the survey reaches both aspiring and established investors. Single-family homes are the most common asset class, held by roughly 72% of respondents, followed by small multifamily properties of two to four units.
That can make it hard for HR pros to guide employees through the grieving process, especially if they’ve never experienced loss themselves. But grief literacy training can help, according to Patricia Bravo, leadership development consultant and author of In the Room: When Grief Comes to Work.
Bravo sat down with HR Brew to share more about grief in the workplace.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What will HR pros learn from your book?
The concept that loss and grief are universal topics that we either have experienced or will be experiencing, and yet it’s one of the most underrepresented topics that’s being discussed in the workplace…We talk more about communication preferences and work styles. We talk about well-being. We talk about mental health, but somehow this topic hasn’t yet made it into the forefront. And, my hope is that HR professionals can really consider what the impact of grief literacy might be in their organization.
How can leaders and HR pros empathize with grief if they’ve never experienced it?
This is where grief literacy can really come in terms of helping professionals and organizations better understand what grief is and how it impacts people…Some of the behaviors that you might see people experience when they’re going through loss and grief might be misattributed to other things. For example, if you see somebody whose, suddenly, their performance isn’t as stellar as it’s been in the past, or they seem checked out, it could be easy to misattribute that to underperformance.
The other thing that organizations really wrestle with is the concept of: What is the best way for me to engage with an individual that has experienced loss and grief? And, my observation is that people don’t always know how to engage because they don’t want to say the wrong thing…My hope is that this book gives organizations and leaders an opportunity to begin the conversation wherever it happens to be in their organizations about grief literacy.
What is grief literacy?
Grief literacy is understanding the foundations and the fundamentals of loss and grief. Grief expertise is attributed to those people that are really deeply steeped and trained in grief, so those might be therapists, those might be thanatologists who study death, and dying, and bereavement.
What I’m suggesting is that we can all become grief literate…It might be as simple as knowing how to engage in a conversation with someone. It might include knowing that an individual’s needs might change from day to day and week to week, and even month to month.
It also includes appreciating that grief evolves over time, and that this often isn’t a one and done situation when you want to offer some support….When leaders and organizations appreciate that, they have a better opportunity to continue the health and well-being of the team member while also supporting them through what they’re going through, which ultimately affects the business.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Key Takeaways
The IKEA effect explains why many entrepreneurs overvalue struggle. Because effort creates emotional attachment, many founders unconsciously associate struggle with value.
Many entrepreneurs spend years training their nervous system to associate pressure with progress, so they recreate complexity, resist systems or keep overworking even after the business no longer needs it.
A business should challenge you and demand growth from you, but never require you to permanently live in survival mode to justify its existence. It should expand your life rather than swallowing it whole.
In 2011, behavioral scientists Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely published research around a curious psychological phenomenon now known as the IKEA Effect.
The idea was deceptively simple: People place disproportionately high value on things they partially build themselves.
In one experiment, participants assembled IKEA furniture and then assigned a value to it. Others looked at the exact same furniture already assembled.
The people who built the furniture valued it significantly more.
Does that mean the furniture was objectively better? No, but their effort changed their emotional attachment to it. The more work people put into creating something, the more meaning they project onto it.
Business owners do this constantly.
Entrepreneurs often overvalue struggle
Many entrepreneurs speak about difficult periods in business almost like war stories. The sleepless nights, financial pressure and uncertainty become badges of honor.
Part of that response makes complete sense — I did it, too. Building a company is genuinely difficult, and resilience matters.
The more interesting change happens later, when some business owners begin unconsciously associating struggle itself with value.
If something feels difficult, they assume it must be important. “Nothing worth having in life is easy” is the justification. If growth feels smooth, they become suspicious. If life starts becoming calmer, they wonder whether they are losing their edge.
Why easier paths feel emotionally uncomfortable
I once spoke with a business owner whose company had finally reached stability after years of struggle. The team was strong, and revenue had become predictable. Operational problems had reduced dramatically.
Wouldn’t you agree that objectively, life had improved?
Well, he hated it. Not consciously, of course.
He kept creating unnecessary complexity inside the business. Priorities shifted every few weeks, and he seemed unable to sit comfortably inside the very rewards that his past struggles had brought him.
At one point, he said something fascinating: “It should feel better now, but I don’t know who I am anymore…”
That sentence explains a great deal about entrepreneurship. Many business owners spend years training their nervous system to associate pressure with progress, so peace begins to feel unfamiliar. The mind starts searching for friction again.
Why entrepreneurs struggle to trust ease
Many business owners become deeply comfortable with pressure because pressure accompanied every important stage of growth. Those difficult years shaped them, so solving hard problems became part of how they understood themselves.
Over time, the mind created an association: “Hard must mean valuable.” That is why some entrepreneurs feel strangely unsettled when businesses become more mature.
A smooth quarter can feel less emotionally satisfying than a chaotic one. Simplicity is suspicious. Stability can even feel like stagnation.
All of this is happening while the business is healthy; the owner has simply spent years wiring struggle into their understanding of progress.
This creates an unusual stalemate. The entrepreneur achieves the very freedom they originally wanted, then unconsciously rejects it, recreating complexity because what they set out to achieve no longer feels emotionally familiar.
Why this creates bad business decisions
The IKEA Effect helps explain why some owners resist simplification.
A founder may reject systems that reduce operational pressure because being needed feels more valuable. A business owner may continue working extreme hours long after the company needs it because exhaustion still feels connected to worth.
Some entrepreneurs even distrust businesses that run smoothly without constant sacrifice. The irony is difficult to miss!
The original purpose of building the business was often freedom. Over time, the owner can become psychologically dependent on the struggle that freedom was supposed to eliminate.
What healthier ambition looks like
Strong business owners eventually learn an important distinction: “Difficulty does not automatically mean meaning.”
Pressure ≠ progress!
Some of the best companies in the world operate with extraordinary calm behind the scenes. That’s because they have strong teams that replace heroics, and long‑term thinking removes constant urgency.
That kind of leadership may look less exciting on social media, but believe me, it usually performs far better over decades.
A different way to measure success
The IKEA Effect tells us another important thing about business owner psychology: We naturally become attached to what costs us effort.
Business owners must be careful not to confuse emotional attachment with wisdom.
Depending on your stage of life and business, it may even sound unintuitive now, but the strongest move in business is not pushing harder, but removing unnecessary friction. Don’t add; declutter.
This is one of the core ideas behind living a Zero Regret Life.
The #1 thing I tell my clients when I coach them is that we are not avoiding ambition or lowering our standards. Our goal is to build success in a way that does not slowly consume the person creating it.
Many entrepreneurs assume that meaning comes from sacrifice alone, so exhaustion proves commitment, and that constant pressure somehow validates the journey.
But eventually they all face an uncomfortable question: “What happens if you build an extraordinary business and wake up years later, having become disconnected from your own life, sacrificing friends, family, leisure and all the other important dimensions of life in the process?”
A business should challenge you, stretch you and demand growth from you, but never require you to permanently live in survival mode to justify its existence.
The entrepreneurs I admire most don’t “perform exhaustion” for the world. They are the people who built something ambitious while still remaining present in their relationships, protective of their health and their family, and capable of experiencing peace without guilt.
That is a very different definition of success.
A Zero Regret Life means building a business that expands your life rather than swallowing it whole. It means creating success you can actually live inside, not merely admire from a distance while running on fumes.
Build something meaningful enough that your life becomes larger because of it, not smaller. The most dangerous thing in business ownership is not failure but becoming successful at a life you no longer enjoy living.
Key Takeaways
The IKEA effect explains why many entrepreneurs overvalue struggle. Because effort creates emotional attachment, many founders unconsciously associate struggle with value.
Many entrepreneurs spend years training their nervous system to associate pressure with progress, so they recreate complexity, resist systems or keep overworking even after the business no longer needs it.
A business should challenge you and demand growth from you, but never require you to permanently live in survival mode to justify its existence. It should expand your life rather than swallowing it whole.
In 2011, behavioral scientists Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely published research around a curious psychological phenomenon now known as the IKEA Effect.
The idea was deceptively simple: People place disproportionately high value on things they partially build themselves.
In one experiment, participants assembled IKEA furniture and then assigned a value to it. Others looked at the exact same furniture already assembled.
It seems that most readers are not aware that we use tags to help categorize posts. This also makes it easier to find content you find interesting. You can also combine multiple tags to narrow down content further (particularly useful for bank account bonuses). Tags can be found at the bottom of each post (please let us know if there is a tag missing you think should be there for a particular post). Below are a list of the most popular tags by pageviews.
Staples
Direct deposit not required
Shop with points
Big
Visa Gift Cards
Office Depot/Max
Amazon
Nationwide Bank Bonuses
TX Bank Bonuses
DoorDash
FL Bank Bonuses
Amex offers
Instacart
Food delivery
inKind
American Express Delta
Uber
Freebies
Mastercard Gift Card Deals
NY Bank Bonuses
We plan to do more to make tags more obvious and integrate them more.
AREIT is the first Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) in the Philippines, formed primarily to own and invest in an income-generating commercial portfolio of office, retail, hotel, and industrial land properties in the country that meets its investment criteria. When the opportunity arises, it may explore other types of real estate properties available in the market.
After a series of strikes and escalations in the Middle East, it appears mortgage rates might soon match the highs seen since the war began.
The highest point for the 30-year fixed since the Iranian conflict got underway was 6.75% back on May 19th, per Mortgage News Daily.
Since that time, they dropped about 0.25% thanks to a ceasefire and peace deal.
But that has since fallen apart and now mortgage rates are close to testing those highs once again.
However, given a lot is “baked in,” mortgage rates might be somewhat capped at these levels.
Mortgage Rates Approaching War Time Highs
The 30-year fixed has had a rough time since hitting 3.5-year lows back at the end of February.
And it’s pretty much all because of an unexpected conflict that broke out in the Middle East.
Before the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, the 30-year fixed was at its lowest point since 2022.
If you recall, rates were still in the 3s to start 2022, but quickly doubled as the year went on.
Though we were only able to muster a sub-6% rate back in February of this year, it was the best rate seen since the latter half of 2022.
That was a very bad year for rates, as they more than doubled in a calendar year once QE ended and inflation began to become a major concern.
Still, getting back there was a huge positive after the 30-year fixed climbed as high as 8% in late 2023.
But those late February levels seem like a distant memory now, with the typical mortgage rate quote back in the high 6s.
Today, the 10-year bond yield, which acts as a bellwether for mortgage rates, rose above 4.60% again on escalations in the Middle East.
The strikes also caused oil prices to rise about five percent as the Strait of Hormuz saw traffic come to a standstill again.
Long story short, the peace deal appears to be toast and tensions seem to be as high as ever.
The market is responding to that risk by selling off and mortgage rates will suffer as well.
Is a Lot of the Move Higher in Mortgage Rates Already Priced In?
However, it’s important to remember the context here. Much of this is already priced in.
Mortgage rates aren’t back near their pre-war levels. They aren’t sub-6% anymore or close to it.
They are priced for the war and the higher oil prices and the inflation that comes with it.
So despite yet another setback in a seemingly hopeless quest for peace, it’s perhaps not as bad as it looks.
What I mean by that is mortgage rates are basically at the top of their range that includes a war premium.
They were as low as 5.99% per Mortgage News Daily back in late February and as high as 6.85% last July.
At last glance, they are around 6.70%, which means they’re basically at their 52-week highs. Or just about.
One could argue that that’s good news because it means the risks are already priced in.
If rates were still low and we were ignoring the developments in the Middle East, that’d be another story.
But it’s already reflected in the price of a mortgage today. You are no longer able to get a sub-6% 30-year fixed (without paying discount points).
Instead, you’re paying a premium of about 75 basis points (0.75%) versus those pre-war levels.
More Downside Potential for Mortgage Rates Near Their 52-Week Highs
In addition, the market isn’t as spooked or bothered by the goings on in the Middle East anymore.
Traders have seen this movie before, multiple times. As such, further upside risk might be limited, especially when you factor in what’s already baked in to the price.
Conversely, what might surprise traders would be peaceful developments, which could lead to lower mortgage rates again!
Taken together, there might be limited upside risk and more downside potential for mortgage rates, despite current headwinds.
Read on: Try my new mortgage rate calculator to compare different interest rates side by side.
Before creating this site, I worked as an account executive for a wholesale mortgage lender in Los Angeles. My hands-on experience in the early 2000s inspired me to begin writing about mortgages 20 years ago to help prospective (and existing) home buyers better navigate the home loan process. Follow me on X for hot takes.
For most families, the best 529 plan is your own state’s plan: most states only give the tax break if you use their plan, and the break usually outweighs fee differences.
Indiana residents get the best deal for 2026: an 87.8% net ROI, driven by the state’s 20% tax credit on contributions.
45 of 49 plans cut fees this year, and 21 states lowered their top income tax rates, shaking up the rankings more than usual.
529 plan performance is tough to measure — it’s not just investment returns, but also tax benefits and fees. A low-cost plan sounds great on paper, but a generous state income tax break can more than make up for a plan with higher fees.
In fact, for most families, the best 529 plan is your own state’s plan because most states only give you the income tax deduction or credit if you use their plan, and that tax break is usually worth far more than any difference in fees. This isn’t a list to shop from the way you’d shop for a brokerage account.
Instead, we rank every state’s plan by net return on investment (net ROI): what a resident actually keeps after fees, with the value of the state income tax break reinvested in the plan. Think of it as a measure of “how good a deal your state gives you”.
For 2026, Indiana residents get the best deal in the country: an 87.8% net ROI, powered by the state’s 20% tax credit on contributions. New Jersey (74.3%) and New York (74.2%) follow. At the bottom, Hawaii returns just 51.4%, a gap of more than 36% between the best and worst states.
There was more movement in the rankings this year than usual: 45 plans cut their fees in the last year and 21 states lowered their top income tax rates. But the core lesson hasn’t changed: net ROI correlates far more strongly with the size of your state’s income tax break than with low fees. And if you live in a state with no tax break (or a tax parity state that gives you the break anywhere), that’s when it makes sense to shop nationwide for the lowest fees.
Let’s break it down.
Table of Contents
What’s New For 529 Plans In 2026
Popular Ratings Of 529 Plans
Two Investment Options Are Enough
Combined Impact Of Fees And State Income Tax Breaks
Best 529 Plan Performance (ROI)
An Important Note About State Tax Breaks
What’s New For 529 Plans In 2026
There have been several recent changes to 529 plans worth knowing before you pick one:
The annual limit on qualified 529 distributions for K-12 tuition and expenses doubled from $10,000 to $20,000. Congress also expanded the list of qualified expenses to cover more K-12 costs and postsecondary credentialing programs (think professional certifications and licenses).
Rollovers from 529 plans to ABLE accounts, previously set to expire, are now permanent. And 529-to-Roth IRA rollovers (available since 2024) remain an option for leftover funds, though the IRS still hasn’t issued guidance on how a beneficiary change or a rollover to another state’s 529 plan affects the 15-year clock.
As remember to check your state’s rules! Just because federal law allows something doesn’t mean your state’s rules conform. You can select your state in The College Investor’s 529 Plan Guide and see what rules your state has.
Popular Ratings Of 529 Plans
There are several well-known ratings of 529 plans, such as:
Savingforcollege.com: 5-Cap Ratings and Performance Rankings
Morningstar: Gold, Silver, and Bronze Ratings
These ratings are based on a holistic evaluation of 529 plan performance, considering the full mix of investment options.
More recently, Penn-Wharton published a study that compares the performance of each state’s 529 plan with a lower-cost, out-of-state plan.
This study confirms two things:
Direct-sold 529 plans have lower fees than advisor-sold 529 plans, lower than 1%.
Investors in 28 states would be better off going out of state for lower fees.
This is similar to previous research, such as Savingforcollege.com’s Fee Study. The Penn-Wharton study identified California as the lowest-cost state since it has lower average fees on its set of investment options.
Two Investment Options Are Enough
A key flaw of all these studies is they use a holistic analysis to identify the best collection of investment options. Most 529 plans offer a dozen or more investment options.
But, all most families need are just two investment options:
High-risk/high-return investment option
Low-risk investment option
They can then mix these investment options to achieve an asset allocation that yields their desired combination of risk and return. Most of the performance of an investment portfolio is due to the asset allocation (e.g., percentage equities), not the specific investments included in the portfolio.
The high-risk investment option can be an S&P 500 index fund. Other stock funds, such as the Russell 2000 and a total stock market index fund, behave similarly to the S&P 500.
Only about 75 stocks in these index funds dictate the performance of the funds because the funds are weighted by market capitalization. Everything else is just a matter of taste. Chasing after the latest fad, such as a REIT, foreign stock fund, or ESG fund, usually results in lower long-term performance.
Although the expenses vary by portfolio, the index funds usually have the lowest fees.
But the fees for the same index funds do vary by 529 plan, from 2 bp to 65 bp. (A “bp” is 1/100th of a percent.)
Combined Impact Of Fees And State Income Tax Breaks
The total annual asset-based fee was identified for the S&P 500 index fund for each direct-sold 529 plan. The fee information was extracted from the latest version of each 529 plan’s disclosure brochure or program description.
If the 529 plan does not offer an S&P 500 portfolio, a large cap or total stock market index fund was substituted, whichever had the lowest fees. Examples include the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund and the U.S. Broad Large Cap Index Fund.
The highest state income tax break was also identified for each 529 plan. Two-thirds of the states offer a state income tax deduction or tax credit based on contributions to the state’s 529 plan.
The fees and state income tax breaks were combined to calculate the net return on investment after investing $100 per month at a 5% annual rate of return for 10 years. This more naturally mimics the typical performance experienced by investors in 529 plans, in contrast with analysis that assumes a $10,000 lump-sum contribution.
A 5% annual rate of return, about half of the long-term return on an S&P 500 index fund, is what one could expect by using an age-based asset allocation on average. The monthly contribution amount does not hold much significance as the return on investment is proportional.
However, $100 per month is low enough to ensure eligibility for the maximum state income tax break. The analysis assumes that the value of the state income tax break is contributed to the 529 plan as an extra contribution once a year. Fees are also subtracted once a year.
The result is shown in the following table, with Wyoming omitted since it does not have its own 529 plan or offer a state income tax break. The table is sorted according to Net ROI, from highest to lowest.
The dozen lowest performing states either do not offer a state income tax break or do not have a state income tax. This includes three states with very low fees:
Florida
South Dakota
California
However, offering a state income tax break does not guarantee good performance. Mississippi offers a state income tax deduction but also charges the highest fees at 60 bp, resulting in among the worst performance.
Generally, there is a stronger correlation between the net return on investment and the value of the state income tax break than with having lower fees. There is no correlation between fees and the state income tax break, so higher fees are not necessary to provide better benefits to families.
Best 529 Plan Performance (ROI)
Here’s a breakdown of states, their fees, tax breaks, and net return on investment (ROI) in ROI order:
State
Fees (bp)
State Tax Break
Net ROI
Indiana
12.5
20%
87.8%
New Jersey
10
10.8%
74.3%
New York
12
10.9%
74.2%
Minnesota
8.1
10%
73.5%
Vermont
13
10%
72.6%
Washington DC
23
10.8%
72.2%
Wisconsin
4
7.7%
70.6%
South Carolina
0
7%
70.2%
Maine
4
7.2%
69.9%
Connecticut
7
7%
69.1%
Maryland
8
6.5%
68.2%
Kansas
2
5.6%
67.8%
Virginia
5
5.8%
67.6%
Rhode Island
10
6%
67.1%
New Mexico
10
5.9%
67.0%
Georgia
2
5%
66.9%
Massachusetts
7
5%
66.1%
Illinois
8.25
5%
65.9%
Utah
9
5%
65.8%
Michigan
3.5
4.3%
65.6%
Oklahoma
10
4.5%
64.8%
Alabama
17
5%
64.5%
Missouri
15
4.7%
64.4%
Nebraska
14
4.6%
64.4%
Louisiana
2
3%
63.8%
Iowa
14
3.8%
63.2%
Idaho
29
5.3%
63.0%
Arizona
7
2.5%
62.3%
Colorado
27
4.4%
62.0%
Ohio
12
2.8%
62.0%
Montana
40
5.7%
61.9%
Pennsylvania
16
3.0%
61.7%
West Virginia
40
4.6%
60.3%
Florida
0
0%
59.6%
South Dakota
0
0%
59.6%
California
5
0%
58.8%
Delaware
7
0%
58.5%
New Hampshire
7
0%
58.5%
Nevada
11
0%
57.9%
Arkansas
48
3.7%
57.8%
Washington
19
0%
56.7%
Oregon
20
0%
56.5%
Tennessee
20
0%
56.5%
Mississippi
60
4%
56.4%
North Dakota
46
2.5%
56.3%
North Carolina
25
0%
55.8%
Texas
31
0%
54.9%
Kentucky
35
0%
54.3%
Hawaii
55
0%
51.4%
An Important Note About State Tax Breaks
Before you make a choice, it’s important to understand one thing about how these tax breaks work: in most states, you only get the state income tax deduction or credit if you contribute to your own state’s plan. Contribute to another state’s plan, and the tax break disappears. This is why your home state’s plan is usually the right default, even if its fees are higher than the top plans on this list. (Each state sets its own rules… here’s why 529 plans differ so much by state.)
But that’s not universal. A handful of “tax parity” states give you the tax break no matter which state’s plan you use. If you live in one of them, you get the best of both worlds: pick the plan with the lowest fees (or the investment options you like best) and still collect your state’s tax break.
And if you live in a state with no income tax break at all, the tax break is off the table entirely. In that case, fees become the biggest driver of your net return, and you’re free to shop nationwide for the best plan.
Look for the lowest-cost plans that offer low fees to out-of-state residents: California or Virginia for example. While some states charge zero fees, many times that’s only open to state residents, so check eligibility before you enroll.
Methodology
This year’s rankings assume annual contributions, a 5% annual return, and that the value of the state income tax break is reinvested in the 529 plan each year. We did not cap the state income tax break, even though many states limit the deduction or credit.
Several states reduced their fees, which had a slight impact. (Two did not change, two increased their fees and 45 decreased their fees. The average change was 6.8 bp, which corresponds to an average 1% change in the Net ROI.) Several states reduced their highest income tax rates by switching from tiered tax rates to a flat tax. (21 states decreased their state income tax rate, 7 increased it and 21 states left it unchanged. The average change was 0.6%, which corresponds to an average 0.9% change in the Net ROI.)
Editor: Robert Farrington
Reviewed by: Ashley Barnett
The post Best 529 Plans For 2026: State Tax Breaks Beat Low Fees In Our Net ROI Rankings appeared first on The College Investor.
On July 7, Cathie Wood’s Ark Genomic Revolution ETF(ARKG +0.86%) sold over 44,000 shares of BioNTech(BNTX 0.76%), a German immunotherapy maker. The next day, it sold over 78,000 shares, a transaction valued at around $7.4 million.
As of July 10, that left her asset management company with just 307 shares, valued at a little more than $28,000. Because Ark Invest holds positions worth millions of dollars and BioNTech is now the smallest holding in this entire exchange-traded fund (ETF), it may be fair to assume that Wood has moved on from BioNTech.
Image source: Getty Images.
What may have caused BioNTech to get the boot
One thing to know about ARKG is that it’s an actively managed ETF, so it’s common for the fund to move in and out of stocks frequently.
Ark ETF Trust – Ark Genomic Revolution ETF
Today’s Change
(0.86%) $0.35
Current Price
$40.94
Key Data Points
AUM
$1.3B
Expense Ratio
0.75%
Top Holdings
TEM
7.96%
TXG
7.72%
TWST
7.39%
Because Wood’s ETF has now sold most of its BioNTech shares, it appears to be moving on, freeing up capital for Ark Invest. BioNTech stock has underperformed this year; as of this writing, its price is down nearly 4% year to date and has dipped more than 17% over the last 12 months. But there are challenges ahead that could continue to send shares lower.
One is that revenue is expected to land somewhere between 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) and 2.3 billion euros ($2.6 billion) in 2026, a significant decrease from the 2.9 billion euros ($3.3 billion) reported for 2025. That’s largely due to an expected drop in revenue from its COVID-19 vaccine, developed in partnership with Pfizer.
Another financial issue is that BioNTech reported back-to-back net losses in 2024 and 2025, after a net profit of 900 million euros ($1 billion) in 2023. That trend of net losses will likely continue, as BioNTech already showed a net loss in its 2026 first-quarter earnings report.
There are also issues on the leadership front. BioNTech’s co-founders, Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, are leaving the company by the end of 2026. Şahin is the CEO, and Türeci is the chief medical officer, so those are significant roles to fill. What makes that leadership transition even more challenging is that BioNTech has been shifting its focus from vaccines to oncology treatments.
Today’s Change
(-0.76%) $-0.68
Current Price
$89.39
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$23BMarket cap calculated using publicly traded shares outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded shares. Implied market cap may vary.
Day’s Range
$88.61 – $89.56
52wk Range
$79.52 – $124.00
Volume
708
Avg Vol
954K
Gross Margin
73.25%
Is it time to sell BioNTech?
The move from Ark Invest is notable. While investors shouldn’t automatically follow its lead in selling the stock, BioNTech is trying to overcome several challenges at once. The company has a promising clinical pipeline of more than 25 phase 2 or phase 3 trials in oncology, but it only has one commercial product — that COVID vaccine with slumping sales. All of this is complicated by the need to find new leadership.
If you haven’t invested yet, you may want to consider holding off on starting a position — at least until new management is found and the drugs in the pipeline show more progress.
