- Fee-onlyno commissions
- No account minimumfor investment management
- English & Spanishnatively
- Accepting new clientsIn person in Norwalk, by video, or at your Northridge business
- Fiduciaryin writing, always
- DFPI-registeredCRD #311270
- In business sinceDecember 2020
- Free 15-minute callno obligation
We work with California State University, Northridge faculty and staff, hospital employees, and the families and small landlords living around the campus. The university side of that list is in CalPERS with supplemental accounts beside it; the hospital side is not in CalPERS at all. Most of the useful work here is establishing which account is actually doing the retirement lifting, and what the others cost to hold.
Start with the honest part: we are 43.3 miles from Northridge
We do not have an office in Northridge, and we are not going to imply otherwise with a service-area pin. our principal office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 43.3 miles away. If a firm's Northridge page does not tell you where its actual office is, that is worth noticing — the August 2026 teardown of this market found out-of-area firms running dozens of city pages each, including one with a Norwalk page containing nothing about Norwalk.
So the question is not proximity. It is whether what we do is worth the drive, a video call, or us coming to you — because we do all three, and evenings run by video. Two things travel perfectly well over distance and are unusually hard to find at any distance: a fee schedule published on the website, and a fiduciary standard you can hold us to in writing. Neither requires us to be down the street.
Is your financial advisor in Northridge actually a fiduciary?
Most people assume yes. The answer depends on how the person is registered. An investment adviser representative owes a fiduciary duty — care and loyalty, across the whole relationship, and it cannot be waived. A registered representative of a broker-dealer is held to Regulation Best Interest, which attaches at the moment of a recommendation and, in the SEC's own words, imposes no duty to monitor an account absent an agreement.
Both can be good at the job. They are not the same promise. You can check any firm in ten minutes: Form ADV at adviserinfo.sec.gov, individuals on BrokerCheck, and the Form CRS. Ours is linked here, and the standard is spelled out on our fiduciary page. Aduna Capital is fee-only: paid by clients, by nobody else, with no commissions and no proprietary products. The full comparison is here →
Who we work with in Northridge
CSUN is the largest employer and the largest single influence on the local economy. Its employees are California State University employees, which means CalPERS for the pension and a supplemental tax-sheltered 403(b) programme beside it, with a 457(b) available to many staff as well. Two things about that are widely misunderstood. First, the supplemental accounts are where employee choice actually lives — the pension formula is fixed, the 403(b) is not. Second, part-time lecturers are frequently not CalPERS members at all; what a semester-to-semester appointment is enrolled in instead is a question to settle from a pay stub rather than an assumption, because it determines whether Social Security is even being withheld.
Around the campus sits an economy the university created. Northridge Fashion Center and the Reseda and Nordhoff retail corridors employ a large hourly workforce. Northridge Hospital Medical Center and its associated practices employ nurses, technicians and administrators in private 403(b) and 401(k) plans with no pension. And the apartment blocks and small multifamily buildings within walking distance of campus are largely owned by individuals and families — a fourplex, a six-unit, sometimes two of them — which makes a surprising number of Northridge households landlords first and investors second.
That last group has a specific 2026 problem. Much of the older wood-frame apartment stock here is soft-storey construction, and the City of Los Angeles retrofit ordinance obliges owners to engineer and brace those buildings. The cost lands on people whose net worth is one building. Whether the answer is to borrow, to sell, or to stop treating the property as a substitute for a diversified portfolio is a real conversation, and it is not one a leasing agent is going to have with you.
The local employer base
California State University, Northridge
Faculty, staff and administrators are CalPERS members with a supplemental 403(b) programme and, for many, a 457(b). The pension formula depends on your hire date and tier; the supplemental accounts depend entirely on what you chose, often years ago. CalPERS · 403(b).
Northridge Hospital Medical Center and area practices
Hospital employees are in private 403(b) or 401(k) plans, not CalPERS — a distinction that surprises people who move from a university job to a clinical one. Rolling accounts between the two worlds needs a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer. Rollovers.
Northridge Fashion Center and the retail corridors
A large hourly and part-time workforce, much of it student, in businesses now covered by the state retirement mandate. For a young worker the Roth IRA is usually the better first account than anything else on offer. Roth or traditional.
Small residential landlords near campus
Not a retirement system, but for many households it is the retirement plan. One building, one tenant market, one ordinance away from a capital call. Depreciation, exchanges and basis are your CPA's ground; concentration and liquidity are ours.
Public pensions and rollovers
CalPERS is the system that matters most in Northridge because the CSU is a CalPERS employer. CalSTRS matters through the Los Angeles Unified campuses, and neither reaches the hospital workforce, which is on private plans. If you are retiring from the university, two decisions are effectively permanent: the retirement option and beneficiary election on the pension, and what happens to the 403(b) balance beside it. They should be made together and they usually are not. CalPERS estimator · Pension versus lump sum.
If you are leaving a job, the rollover decision is where the most money is quietly lost — the 20% mandatory withholding under IRC § 3405(c) catches people who take the cheque themselves. The four options, step by step · Seven costly mistakes · Run the numbers. For public employees: CalPERS, CalSTRS, LACERA and OCERS explained.
A first conversation about Northridge money, at no cost
Fifteen minutes on the phone. If your question has a short answer you will get it on the call, and if we are not the right firm for you we will say that too.
Our fees, published
No competing advisor page in this area publishes its fees. Here are ours.
| What | Fee |
|---|---|
| Investment management | 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year; Advisers may set a rate below the standard schedule, as low as 0%, at their discretion — and whatever rate applies to you is disclosed in writing before you engage. Our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5, states the fee as up to 2.00% of assets per year, subject to negotiation; the firm may waive all or part of it. Generally billed quarterly in arrears |
| Account minimum | No minimum account balance |
| Commissions and product fees | None — we are fee-only |
| Solicitor compensation | May be received or paid under disclosed arrangements |
| Initial conversation | Free, 15 minutes, no obligation |
Complete fee details in our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5.
Northridge questions
I'm a part-time lecturer with a contract that renews by semester. What am I actually in?
Read the deductions on your pay stub before you conclude anything. Part-time, temporary and seasonal public employees in California are not always CalPERS members, and some are in an alternative retirement arrangement in place of Social Security rather than in addition to it. That single fact changes your savings rate, your Social Security record and whether an IRA should be your main account. Bring the stub — we will not charge you to read it.
I own a fourplex near campus and the retrofit is going to cost real money.
Then you are being asked to make a capital decision about an asset that is probably most of your net worth. The three honest options are finance it, sell it, or hold it and accept a leaner decade. What we can add is the part outside the building: how much liquidity the household has, what the rest of the portfolio should look like if the property stays, and what it should look like if it goes. Structure and taxes go to your CPA.
I'm retiring from the CSU next year. Which pension option do I take?
It depends on your spouse's own retirement income, your health, and what else you own — and it is one of the few financial decisions that genuinely cannot be undone once you file. We model the options against the rest of the balance sheet before you elect, at no charge for the pension review itself. Survivor elections. We are not affiliated with CalPERS or the CSU.
Do you actually meet clients from Northridge, or is this page just for search?
We meet them. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 43.3 miles from Northridge — clients come to us, we come to them, or we meet by video, and evening appointments can be arranged. What we will not do is claim an office in Northridge that does not exist. Call (657) 571-2607. We are registered as an investment adviser in California.
What is the account minimum?
There isn't one to open. We ask for $50 a month of continuing deposits, because a plan you do not fund is not a plan. Our fee is 1.5% to 2.0% of assets under management per year, billed quarterly, and it is published — which is more than most firms in this market will tell you before a meeting.
¿Atienden en español?
Sí. Atendemos en español, y buena parte de nuestro material existe en español, escrito originalmente, no traducido por máquina.