September 2019 Blog Posts - South Florida Real Estate Blog by Shari Orland, Realtor
The Downsizing Dilemma Gets a Helpful Hint
Posted by Shari Orland on Monday, September 30, 2019 at 8:35 PM By Shari Orland / September 30, 2019 Comment
Here’s an idea from one homeowner who’s just completed a complicated exit from a sizeable house to a smaller property. It’s a last-minute strategy that could be helpful for Boca Raton readers who are planning a similar downsizing move.
Currently, the Boomer generation leads the pack of Boca Raton downsizers who face similar associated challenges. They’re emotional as well as practical—and this idea could be helpful on both scores.
The challenge of downsizing comes with paring down all the sheer scale of household bric-a-brac that builds up over the course of daily living. Some of the stuff may be saleable, but especially lately, because downsizing is becoming so rampant, most is not. The old, non-electronic ingredient scale may be perfectly functional but is currently more likely to end up in a landfill instead of on anyone’s kitchen counter. Why it wasn’t disposed of when the spiffy newer gizmo took its place is just human nature—we hesitate to throw things out when they still work!
But for older Boca Raton downsizers, there’s an emotional dimension to the process. When you’re wading through those boxes that haven’t been opened for ages to see if they’re of value, you find yourself with a dilemma. You can’t just toss all those cartons filled with envelopes jammed with pictures of bygone days—even when you know only a few are true gotta-save keepers. Every carton may have an irreplaceable family heirloom tucked in there alongside its eminently disposable cousin—but as a practical matter, when the moving van will soon be idling in the driveway, unless you are a hyper-organized person, the amount of time it would take to go through everything won’t be left.
Surprising Delray Beach Real Estate Lessons for GenX Generation
Posted by Shari Orland on Monday, September 9, 2019 at 8:20 PM By Shari Orland / September 9, 2019 Comment
By now, just about everyone in Delray Beach looks back on the last decade’s housing bust with a lot less consternation than heretofore—time can do that (as well as the recovery of temporarily lost value). For some Delray Beach homeowners, the temporary nosedive in Delray Beach real estate values was little more than an uncomfortable learning experience. For others, it served as confirmation of the long-term store of value their Delray Beach real estate embodies. But for others, the dominant memory is of the severe dislocation it and the accompanying worldwide financial meltdown triggered. Members of the Gen X group (those born between 1965-1980) could have ample reason to identify with any of the above—but there’s reason to believe the first two claim more adherents.
The Pew Research Center has gone over the statistics and emerged with these factoids about the generations and how they have fared, post-recession. The first one may be the most surprising:
Gen X households are the only ones to recover the wealth lost in the Great Recession. This was as of July 2018, but is eyebrow-raising since the Gen Xers were, according to Pew, “particularly hard hit.” That makes sense since they were younger than the Boomers, so more likely to have entered the market when prices were at their peak. Their superior rebound is explained by the fact that wealth tends to rise most quickly at younger ages—so the rebound caught their earnings sweet spot.
Today, Typical Gen X homeowners have more home equity than before the housing collapse. Since Gen Xers are in the prime working-age range, they’ve displayed the most consistent “ability to rebuild wealth.” Compared with the Boomers, Silent Generation, and to a lesser extent, Millennials, they have attained...
Boca Raton Real Estate Investing Without Pop-Up Ads
Few Boca Raton residents who spend much time online have avoided the unnerving experience of having their screens populated with ads aimed at them, personally. Whether the culprit is Google or Facebook or one of the otherwise-useful apps, it’s close to impossible to avoid having your personal preferences noted and exploited by the omnipresent web snoops.
Among the annoying pop-up ads that result can be the ones that aim at real estate investors. Some feature piggy bank graphics, graying couples with anxious (or confident) expressions on their faces, or charts with upward-sloping trend lines. There is one that shows a toy house on top of a mountain of dollar bills—a variation on the ones perched atop stacks of coins.
But then there are the really aggressive pop-ups. Some of them actually pop up and without even asking start playing video movies about successful real estate investing. If the soundtracks are noisy, and particularly if they originate from a window buried behind other windows (so you have to stop what you’re doing to find them in order to shut them up), these can be really annoying.
Real estate investment pop-ups may promise Simple ways to invest, Hidden ways to invest, or even Secret ways to invest. The Secret ways are often free—contained in online books whose covers tend to look a lot like the other pop-up graphics (piggy banks, mounds of cash, etc.). It’s not hard to resist downloading them.
I have a not-so-hidden secret about Boca Raton real estate investing. Success takes some thoughtful groundwork, including identifying an investment goal, devising a strategy, and finding an energetic local real estate agent who knows Boca Raton and its current and emerging opportunities. When you give me a call, we...
Teamwork. A true team player is called for because top agents are flexible enough to be able to follow the direction of the client (you: the team captain) while working harmoniously with the full roster of other local Boynton Beach professionals. They will ultimately include...