In our current market, there are at least 40 percent fewer homes on the market than a year ago. Buyers who are serious have probably already experienced the disappointment of losing a home due to increased competition. Today, buyers are looking for ways to improve their chances of having the best contract without using the […]
“How long do I have to keep this stuff?” is the usual question you ask yourself when you feel you are running out of room for storing all the paper “files” that you might not need. When you purchase lunch, that little receipt you get can go immediately in the trash. Some may keep it […]
In the U.S. tax code, a little-known provision allows homeowners to rent out their principal residence or second home for up to 14 days a year without having to use that money as income. But the taxpayer cannot deduct any rental expenses associated with this income. You can earn as much as you want with […]
Consider, before paying cash for a home, if at some time in the future you would want to add a mortgage on the home and want to deduct that mortgage interest on your federal tax return. The current federal tax law allows homeowners to deduct the interest on up to $750,000 in acquisition debt that […]
Used cars: it is not usually a good idea to spend a bunch of money to fix up a used car before you trade it in. You won’t recapture the money you spent on the repairs. Dealers can make repairs less expensive than you can. And you are selling to a wholesaler who then needs […]
Let’s take a moment to understand the reason why a homeowner should not try to sell their home themselves, what’s the motivation? Most likely it is because the homeowner wants to “save” paying the commission. This can certainly be a lot of money. If we look back to 1981, homes that sold FSBO (For Sale […]
CoreLogic analyzed national homeowner equity. This equity grew in the 4th quarter of 2020 by $1.5 trillion or 16.2 percent year-over-year. The study was done on homeowners who have mortgages on their homes. In the fourth quarter of 2020, we also saw the number of mortgaged residential homes with negative equity decreased by 8 percent […]
The monthly affordable rent as a percentage of monthly income is what we call the rent to income ratio. Tenants should keep this ratio within 30 percent of their monthly gross income. With a shortage of rental units in some areas, it may not be possible. In this situation, a tenant would have to spend […]
There has been this stigma about new families or first-time home buyers getting their first “starter” home. For generations, people have looked for that home as a jump into homeownership. Logic suggests that starting with a smaller home, you can learn how to take care of it, learn what it costs to maintain a home, […]
Tax filing season is upon us again. A silver lining to completing that return is getting good news about a refund. This extra money could literally open the door to a new home. If you happen to be one of the fortunate, then your next decision is what to do with the refund. The average […]
