I'm looking for a financial advisor to help manage my investments. 
They should have the following properties:

1) They must be certified by DFA [www.dfaus.com] for access to DFA's
funds, as I already have some money invested with them.  If you don't
have a DFA-approved advisor, you can't buy DFA funds or otherwise add
any money to your existing DFA holdings [other than dividend
re-investments].  Brokerages may seem to offer DFA funds for sale to
all, but when you actually try to buy
them, they'll stop you.

2) They must be willing to have and use trading authority over my
existing brokerage account.  I should be able to call up and say
"Rebalance for me" and have it happen.  They won't be able to withdraw
money from the account.

3) They must be compensated either hourly or with a flat rate per
year/quarter/etc., not as a percentage of invested assets, nor by
commission, markup, or kickback of any kind.

4) They must have a reasonable set of credentials [CFP or other
industry or scholastic certifications].

5) Evanson Asset Management and Frank Rimerman Co are unacceptable for
reasons not listed here [which won't apply to other advisers].

6) They must be willing and able to work with clients in California. 
They need not be in California if they're willing to work by
phone/email/etc., but they must be in the USA.

Basically I'm looking for someone to give me investment advice, but
accept my input as well.  I favor a passive, index-based investment
style, and trade very seldom.  I don't want to pay for services I
don't use, but want good advice when I need it.  I want someone who'll
let me know how things are going periodically, and call me up once a
year and say "It's time to rebalance.  Shall I do that for you?".  I
realize that you can't necessarily tell all of that from websites, but
if you find folks who satisfy the conditions above, I can check out
the rest.

What I'd like is contact info [email and/or phone number] and supporting
references for several qualified advisers.  The more choices I have,
the better, but I'd be happy to find at least 2.

---

Request for Question Clarification by keystroke-ga on 16 Nov 2006 13:04 PST

Hello need_fee_only_help,

It is pretty standard practice as far as investing goes to charge an
accelerated percentage of money that is invested.  Almost all advisors
do that.  Have you heard of this actually not being done or are you
just theorizing that it is possible?  I am not finding any advisors
that would be willing to charge a flat fee. They deal with wealthy
clients and treat them as such by charging a percentage of that
invested wealth.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

--keystroke-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by keystroke-ga on 07 Dec 2006 23:39 PST

In fact, the only one that meets your requirements is actually Evanson
Asset Management, so you would be stuck with them if you stay with
your requirements.  Are you willing to go with someone who is based on
a percentage of assets?  Even the DFA outlines for advisors say that
advisors take a percentage.

--keystroke-ga

Hello need_fee_only_help,

Thank you for your very interesting question.

I'm going to go ahead and give you the investment advisors that I have
found (which all come highly recommended) and work with the DFA and
clients from all over the country.  I have gone with the National
Association of Personal Financial Planners' definition of "fee only"--
the financial planner only takes a fee and not a commission on
investments.  The following advisors all fall into this category.  The
first two are more of a "flat fee" basis.  The others are those with
the lowest fees I could find besides Cardiff Park.

--------------------

Cardiff Park Advisors
http://www.cardiffpark.com/our_fixed_low_fees.aspx
Cardiff By the Sea, California
Phone (760) 635-7526 | Toll Free (888) DFA-2238 | Fax (760) 284-5550

--------------------

Altruist Investment Advisors
Phone: 269-857-2743
Toll-Free: 1-888-894-8244
Fax:  269-857-3753
E-Mail: ehaas@altruistfa.com

Eric E. Haas, MBA, MS
Altruist Financial Advisors LLC
3754 65th St
Holland, MI  49423-9739
http://www.altruistfa.com/services.htm

--------------------

Buckingham Asset Management
https://bamweb.bamservices.com/

Buckingham comes highly recommended and is a notable purveyor of the DFA.

-----------

Investor's Capital Management LLC
Menlo Park, California
http://www.feesonly.com/

-----------

Sources:

National Association of Personal Financial Planners
http://www.napfa.org/consumer/WorkingwithaFeeOnlyAdvisor.asp

Vanguard Diehards Forum
"Low Cost DFA Investment Advisor?"
http://socialize.morningstar.com/NewSocialize/Asp/FullConv.asp?forumId=F100000015&convSeqNumber=54693&mrr=1164143460

Search terms:
fee-only
fee-only dfa california

If you need any additional clarification, let me know and I'll be glad
to assist you.

--keystroke-ga

Sorry about the lack of response to your questions; I'd thought
Answers would email me on any activity, but perhaps I set it up
incorrectly.

While I was asking for 2 advisors, I wasn't really expecting that
you'd find any that fit all my requirements, as I'd already looked
around for a while myself.  As it is, you found me Cardiff Park, which
qualifies, so I'm going to call this answer OK anyway.  Thanks for the
help!

Howdy need_fee_only_help-ga,

My colleague keystoke-ga is spot on with the above stated assessment,
and I have no doubt that it is not casually stated.

I would suggest that you have keystroke-ga work up an answer that has
suggestions of percentage based advisors for you, especially as Evanson
Asset Management is not a viable alternative.

Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher