spoke to a financial planner this morning. had some decent, basic advice for my position (buying a house in the next year or so). i'm sure he's smarter than i am in this field, but my main issue was whether his benefit outweighed his cost.
says he makes his money by splitting the investment fees with the various companies offering the investments so there's very little out of pocket outside of an annual fee (~$50). so that seems relatively low risk, but I can't help but notice an inherent conflict of interest through that compensation structure (i.e. he's incentivized to choose investment vehicles with higher fees).
probably going to go with him anyway.
Did you ask him what the Investment Fee's are on the funds he would invest you in? I'm guessing they are alot, would also ask about any load fees. Even if his "Fee" works out to only 1% it will turn into Hundreds of thousands of dollars over 30 years. If you have $0 invested right now and contribute $1000 a month over the next 30 years that 1% fee will turn into $195,000 less in your account over 30 years.
If you are not already maxing your tax advantaged space (401k/IRA) then do that first before you open any brokerage account with a financial advisor. If you are unsure on what funds to select in your 401k/IRA just post them here or put them in a SP500 Index fund or a target date retirement fund.
IMO the only time an adviser makes sense is after you have accumulated a lot of money and need advice on tax/estate planning strategies.
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