I thought vacation home sales would be breaking records since Baby Boomers are better positioned to buy them than any previous generation. A number of other factors should also be propping up the vacation home market: a strong economy, a 10-year bull market in stocks, and relatively low mortgage rates. However, vacation-home sales have been …View Article
Category: Real Estate
Real Estate
Starter Homes: Shortage Likely To Get Worse
Is a shortage of starter homes going to turn into the next housing crisis? A few weeks ago, I wrote an article called “Should Retirees Sell Their Rental Properties?”. My article showed that rentals generally do not provide a very compelling cash-on-cash return. Real estate is generally considered a “total return” investment vehicle, where free …View Article
Airbnb Host: How to Make Money with Short-Term Rentals
This past week, I met with a couple who is buying a vacation home near their kids and grandkids. This real estate purchase was not part of their original retirement plan, so we had to move a few things around to make the numbers work. I think I’ve been influenced by my recent research on …View Article
Timeshares: Does It Make Sense To Buy One?
Timeshare presentations have replaced used car salesmen as the image we conjure up when we think of high pressure sales. The timeshare industry has a bad reputation based on sleazy tactics, hidden fees, and an overall lack of transparency. Yet timeshare sales continue to boom. Domestic timeshare sales were $9.2 billion in 2017. That’s more …View Article
Should Retirees Sell Their Rental Properties?
Most people’s dream retirement does not revolve around trash, tenants, and toilets. As such, many of my clients sell their rental properties around the same time they are filing for Social Security. However, some retirees like the idea of having rental properties to supplement their other income sources. This begs the question: “Do rental properties …View Article
Home Remodeling – Why Is It So Popular?
Is it just me, or does it seem like there is suddenly construction everywhere? This building boom feels similar to the early part of the last boom years of 2000-2007. Turns out that what I was feeling really only relates to home remodeling, which is on track to hit $300 billion this year. This would …View Article
Rents Increase, Spurred By Falling Home Ownership
In general, I hate when people over-simplify financial planning with “general rules of thumb.” Nevertheless, a widely quoted general rule says you should not spend more than 25% of your income on rent. Sadly, 11.8 million households in the United States spend a whopping 50% or more of their income on rent. As you can …View Article
Real Estate: Rental Properties vs. The Stock Market
Have you ever wondered whether buying rental real estate is a better investment than the stock market? What are the costs, challenges, and likely returns for being a landlord? Analyzing all of the cash flows can get confusing, so let me elucidate. That means shed light upon…just in case the word elucidate needed any elucidation. …View Article
Home Ownership – Buy or Rent Your Residence?
One of the biggest financial decisions people make is whether to buy or rent their place of residence. It was generally accepted that buying was the wealth-maximizing strategy prior to the housing bust of 2006-2011. Now, many people are not as enamored with the idea of home ownership as they once were. Home ownership has …View Article
Debt To Income Ratio: How Much House Can You Buy?
Your mortgage broker needs to know two things in order to tell you how much you can borrow: your income and your recurring monthly debt obligations. These two numbers are used to determine your Debt to Income Ratio (DTI). The debt to income ratio includes all loan payments, such as minimum monthly credit card payments, …View Article