Houses

MOST OF US REACH a point in retirement where we think about downsizing. This happened most recently for us when my husband was replacing batteries in our smoke alarms. This required him to stand on a ladder and look up, triggering a bout of vertigo.

This and other elder episodes, happening as we try to perform simple, everyday tasks, caused us to rethink our ability to remain in our current home. We’re not decrepit yet,

YOU’VE SOCKED AWAY some cash, waiting for the chance to snap up a small rental property. Property prices are down. Meanwhile, interest rates are up and many folks can’t qualify for a loan, but you’ve already been preapproved. It’s time to strike.
Now comes the hard part. Much literature is available on how to buy and sell residential income units. But there’s much less written on how to manage them. What follows is a primer for first-time landlords.

IT WOULD BE EASY to sell my home “in a snap” for a no-obligation, all-cash offer—or so I was told in a mailing I received last week. I frequently get letters, texts, emails and phone calls from companies that want to buy my two-bedroom condo for cash.
It’s tempting to sell. I’m retired, and both my children have left to find their fortunes in bigger cities. But I suspect the new owner would then rent out my unit for some jacked-up price.

ABOUT HALF THE RENTALS that my wife and I own were foreclosures we bought around the time of the Great Recession. In fact, I closed on the first one on my wedding day—a fact my wife isn’t anxious to let me forget.

In 2000, a family had bought the house for $70,000. In 2006, JPMorgan Chase foreclosed on the house. In 2007, the bank unloaded the property for $93,000 to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD),

“I WOULD SAY TO the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering…. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory. Victory at all costs—victory in spite of all terror—victory, however long and hard the road may be,

I’M STILL AMAZED WHEN I speak with friends and neighbors who have no idea what their home is worth. They tell me they might sell in the near future. When I ask them how much they think they’ll get, they say something like, “I’m not sure, I’m meeting a real estate agent next week.”
Homeowners always need to know how much their home is worth. You can’t wait until your boss tells you about a great opportunity in Honolulu to start determining your home’s value.

IF THERE’S ONE THING that causes more marital stress than money, it’s the thermostat. I figured combining both into one article would be nothing less than genius.
As I grow older, I’ve come to appreciate my father’s fascination with the thermostat, because now I, too, am constantly adjusting it. In my case, based on the current and future temperature, humidity and cloud cover, the adjustments are in the most economical direction. My wife is a set-it-and-forget-it kind of gal,

IN THE NAVY, THEY USED to say, “You don’t get what you expect, you get what you inspect.” Inspections played a major role in how the Navy determined the competency and capability of a warship. For nuclear-powered submarines, the most important inspection was the Operational Reactor Safeguard Exam, or ORSE, which rhymes with horse.
A team of experts thoroughly inspected all aspects of a submarine’s nuclear power plant. This covered everything from material readiness (“verdigris on valve stem”),

THE DALLAS HOUSING market has recently shown signs of slowing. In our townhome community, I’ve noticed that houses are sitting unsold for longer. Until recently, any place on the market for more than seven days was considered unusually long.
Two weeks ago, we became interested in buying a two bedroom, two bath townhome on our street as a rental property. It was listed at $375,000. Upon a closer look, however, we found the following:

The property hasn’t been upgraded since 1988.

BACK IN 2005, MY employer was in merger talks. If the deal had gone through, I would have lost my job. I’d already received an offer of promotion to vice president. That made me eligible for an officer’s severance package that included, among other things, two years’ pay plus my full pension.
I was almost hoping the deal would go through, but it didn’t. Still, I was made a VP and worked another five years.

“I’VE GOT SOME REAL estate here in my bag,” croons Paul Simon, as he consoles his lover in the iconic 1968 song America.
The real estate industry’s marketing arm couldn’t have put it better. The industry’s message: If you want to feel secure and be prosperous, get yourself some real estate.
Problem is, many people can’t come up with the down payment for a home or rental property. The good news: There’s an alternative to direct ownership.

I’M EMBARRASSED TO admit that the best piece of financial advice I’ve ever received is also the only piece of financial advice I’ve ever received. To make matters worse, the advice came from someone who stood to profit from the guidance he was providing.
As a child, I don’t remember a single family discussion about money. There were no dinner table talks about the stock market. There were no lectures about saving, spending or investing for college.

MY 95-YEAR-OLD mother recently asked my brother and me what information we could get on our cellphones. While showing her the many possibilities, we went to Zillow, so she could see the information that the site has about the house that my wife and I own.
Zillow estimates that the house is currently worth $336,700, and said that we purchased it in 1986 for $86,700. My brother, who is much smarter than me, did some quick mental math using the rule of 72,

ONE OF MY FAVORITE indicators right now is the ICE BofAML MOVE Index. Sound like trading jargon? Think of it as comparable to the VIX, except—instead of measuring stock market volatility—it does the same for bonds. Today, it’s indicating improving confidence in what’s lately been a very turbulent bond market.
MOVE is high when there are big daily swings in bond market interest rates. That’s what we’ve seen in 2022 as traders grapple with fast-changing economic data.