Interview Prospective Realtors As Potential Employees

We don't think many people who are selling or buying a house consider "interviewing" prospective realtors.  It's good advice, though. 

5 Things Wealthy People Do

Find out what the successful people do and do that.

The Fed Gives the Rich a Long Needed Wake Up Call

During the Great Depression our federal government came up with the great idea that helping individuals buy a home would be a boost to the economy and put people back to work. It was a nice gesture and maybe had its place and time seventy years ago, but what happened to it all? Politicians got a hold of it, is what happened. What started out as “an affirmative obligation to facilitate the financing of affordable housing for low-income and moderate-income families” turned into backing mortgages for homes to the price of $729,750.

Really? I mean really in a Seth Myers SNL kind of really. Not even in California or New York is a $730k home for the “low-income and moderate income-families.” This is actually something that the Democrats and Republicans seem to finally agree upon. Yes, it’s true, even our elected officials who pander to the power brokers agree that you and me, tax payer should not be on the line for someone who wants to buy a house three times the national average.

Of course we will hear the complaints of poor rich home owner, there is no one to back my mortgage and the snowball will roll down hill to those of us who bought much much lower priced houses, but that’s a lot of snow and a pretty big hill.

It is nice to see someone say enough is enough, people have to take responsibility for what they buy and maybe just maybe, be Money Conscious; know what they can afford and buy what they can afford.

Federal Retreat on Bigger Loans Rattles Housing

Double Dip Housing Market Reinforces Why We Should All Live Below Our Means

In 2007 when we were looking to purchase a home our real estate agent kept urging us to look at homes in the $375-450k range in a fantastic Mid-Century modern neighborhood we love. The homes are beautiful and very stylish and fetching a price that even to this day has maintained its value. What was the problem? First the homes were about 40% larger than we really needed, ranging from 1500-2200 square feet. Secondly the prices were about 5 to 7 times our annual salary, at the time.

We kept reminding our agent we did not want a place larger than 1,200 square feet and we did not want to spend more than one and a half times our joint salary, since we wanted to continue to be able to afford our new, future home even if one of us lost our job.  We stuck to our guns and purchased a 1,008 square foot condo for just that price. 

Now that we seem to be heading into a double dip in the housing market, this reinforces for us the principle of living below our means.  We understand that the popular opinion is to be angry with banks for robo-signing loans and motivating real estate agents to motivate their buyers to buy larger and more expensive homes, but we have individual responsibility, too.  Mom and Dad’s old rule of thumb of not buy a home more than three times our income is still solid.

With our increase in salaries over the years and our aggressive plan to pay our mortgage off early, our loan is now only one times our joint salary and that feels pretty good.  Hopefully others will learn the lesson of the not-so-distant past and the present when they find themselves in the market for another home.

National Home Prices Double Dip