Category: Retirement Real Estate
It's April so it must be Home Inspection month. If you are thinking about buying a new home for retirement this is a good time to get acquainted with the basic items to look for when buying a home. This is particularly true in this era of short sales and foreclosures, where preventative maintenance probably wasn't kept up with. Editor's note: We have to confess we felt a little superior when we saw this topic in a headline. But guess what - most of these concerns hadn't even occurred to us.
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Published on April 21, 2009
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
March 23 - Retirees either looking to sell their existing homes or see their retirement portfolios reclaim some of their losses got some good news today. Sales of existing homes in the U.S. increased 5.1% in February over January, helping give Wall Street its best day in months. Sales of single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops were off 4.6% vs. the year earlier February. Prices continued to decline in February as the median selling price of a U.S. home fell to $165,400, off 15% from the year earlier period.
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Published on March 23, 2009
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Dateline: Fort Myers and Miami, Florida. Your Topretirements editor is spending a few days in South Florida. Realizing that the region is one of the 3 hardest hit real estate markets in the country (along with Phoenix and Las Vegas), we wondered: what would this meltdown look like in person? Since retirement in the warm climes of South Florida is the dream of many a baby boomer, here is our report on what we can see by looking out the window, jogging through the streets, talking with folks, and reading the newspapers.
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Published on March 1, 2009
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
If you could buy your dream home and save $200,000 or more, would you be tempted? For many retirees, the news reports of homes selling for half what they were 3 years ago are interesting. In fact, in many areas of the country the prospect of a bargain-priced distress sale has become so attractive that sales of new homes have just about stopped. In case you are thinking about plunging in yourself, we have prepared some background on the issues involved in this topic for our Topretirements.com visitors.
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Published on February 22, 2009
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
It's not a contest anyone wants to win - whose housing crisis was the worst in 2008. The contenders: Phoenix, Las Vegas, South Florida - all with year over year price declines of 30% or more.
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Published on February 9, 2009
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
As 2008 draws to a close and fond memories of the holidays begin to recede, here's a wish for much better retirement and retirement community news next year.
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Published on December 26, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
Regardless of when the economy turns back around, the financial crisis has put just about everyone's retirement lifestyle picture a little bit askew. If there is any silver lining, it just might be that it forces us to look at the retirement paradigm in a new way.
Remodeling
Common wisdom and AARP surveys show that at least 80% of people would like to retire right where they live now. The problem is, most of us moved into our homes with different lifestyle requirements than what we have now. Whereas we were once looking for more room for our families, a smaller footprint (with reduced energy consumption and property taxes) might be more appropriate today. Another consideration is that our future mobility will not be what it once was. So if we are to stay in our homes, remodeling them to fit our future might be a good idea.
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Published on December 16, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
This is not to say that the bad news in housing, particularly for retirement communities, is over. But there have been some rays of good news popping up here and there. Thank goodness, we are tired of writing about the same old bad news!
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Published on October 28, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
It is one of our favorite recommendations – if you want to get a good deal in retirement real estate, stay away from the coasts. The 2008 Coldwell Banker Home Price Comparison Index provides a pretty good illustration of the theory. The real estate brokerage firm makes an annual comparison…
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Published on September 10, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
If this headline about seller's remorse strikes you as a little bit of a non-sequitur, you wouldn't be alone. With the turmoil in South Florida's active adult and real estate market, you would think we should be talking about "buyer's remorse". That's the affliction that comes when people who bought a few years ago are under water with their mortgage - they owe more than what their home is worth.
Rafael Diaz could tell you all about it. Two years ago this Miami builder listed a brand new home near the University of Miami for $979,000. Today's listing price - $599,000. What's worse is that he turned down an offer of $770,000 just a year ago. What he told the New York Times says a lot of sellers remorse, "I should have taken it. ... I guess I was a little cocky...."
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Published on September 3, 2008
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