Primary home may not be a good investment

My dumbest investment

Mydumbest investment was buying a house in Las Vegas in October 2007. After only two years, it had lost about 40 percent of its sales value. Two refinances later, and now a planned strategic sale by the end of the year, and I’m hoping I can get out of this “investment” essentially even (with the bonus of having lived in it for six years). I will be completely debt-free! But I’ll also be homeless, looking for a rental.

The Fool responds: Housing markets can be surprisingly volatile, and it can be a mistake to think of your primary home as an investment. There are upsides to buying a home, such as equity growth, but there are other considerations, too, such as utility costs. You can often save by renting a home, and if you sock those savings into a retirement account, you can often build an equitylike nest egg.

Name that company

I was founded in 1998 in California and went public in 2004. Since then, my stock has grown in value more than tenfold. I began in 1996 as an online tool called BackRub that used links to determine the importance of individual pages on the Internet. My current name is a play on the number that’s a 1 followed by 100 zeros. I rake in more than $57 billion annually, keeping more than $12 billion as income. Who am I?

Answer: Google.

Qualcomm: Overlooked value

You may not have heard of Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM), but its technology is found inside just about every smartphone. It not only makes semiconductors, but also derives billions annually from the licensing of its patents. Qualcomm collects a 3 percent to 5 percent royalty on the sale price of each cellular device sold. It offers a 2 percent dividend yield. Qualcomm does face formidable competition, but it’s still a dominant force. Growth prospects for Qualcomm are solid as it expands into territory such as telemedicine.