While use of real estate lawyer is mandatory in some states, in most states it is optional. I’ve bought four properties and sold one property. For all the transactions, I have never once used a real estate lawyer because California law says using one is not required.

However, even if you live in a state that doesn’t require a real estate lawyer, you may want to consider paying for one.

Let me share several examples with you why getting a real estate lawyer may be a good idea. A real estate lawyer could save you from a lot of pain and suffering, as well as from financial loss.

The housing market is in a tricky situation given massive unemployment, shelter-in-place, the coronavirus, and tremendous uncertainty. However, not all is lost, especially after a massive 44% month over month rebound in U.S. Pending Home Sales for May. Here are my housing predictions for 2021.

Overall, I believe the housing market will soften in 2020 and then reach new highs in the second half of 2021.

Given my housing market prediction, we all have a chance to buy property at a discounted price between now and around July 1, 2021. After July 1, 2021, I expect nationwide housing prices to have fully recovered.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how climate change may positively or negatively affect real estate values.

If you are planning on investing in real estate and passing down your real estate holdings to your children, then it’s worth thinking about how climate change may affect real estate values in the future.

I realized the other day that every single one of my properties is on a hill. I didn’t purposefully go out and hunt for properties on a hill. It just happened that way.

The only property I owned that wasn’t on a hill was sold in 2017. Maybe subconsciously, the reason for the sale wasn’t due to the hassle of being a landlord. Perhaps it was due to my dislike of facing another building.

As a real estate enthusiastic, one of my main criteria for owning property is that it must have good feng shui. And one aspect of good feng shui is having a pleasant view. When you enter a property, you can just feel the positive or negative feng shui. A lot of the feel has to do with light, direction, sound, and layout.

Besides, having a view gives a property a unique competitive advantage. Views make properties more desirable. And the more unique and desirable the property, the better it will hold its value or appreciate over time.

Given it’s human nature to want what you can’t have, I decided to set my sights on acquiring a beachfront or close to beachfront property in Hawaii for my ultimate retirement home.

I dreamed of being able to step onto my ocean-facing deck and feel the sea breeze on my face every morning. While doing my morning stretches, I wanted to smell the ocean, especially now that rolling lockdowns will likely become the norm.

In my search, I found a couple of “affordable” beachfront properties in Honolulu that needed remodeling. Then I was reminded by readers, my father, and by several natural disasters that perhaps owning a beachfront property is not a great idea long-term.

Let’s take a glimpse at how climate change affects real estate investing.

Despite all the hype about massive workforce migration to lower-cost cities due to the work from home trend, I now believe the migration trend may be slower than hotly anticipated.

We’ve been talking about investing in the heartland of America since 2017. I’m glad everyone from the mass media to various famous pundits is now on board after most of our nation has experienced more than two months of lockdowns.

Hometown firms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Square, and Salesforce are either allowing their thousands of employees to work from home until the end of the year or forever. To retain talent and stay competitive in attracting talent, other companies must follow suit.

And it’s not just other tech companies that need to allow their workforce to work from home indefinitely. It’s other industries as well that pay similar wages and vie in the same talent pool.

For example, the finance industry began to relax its dress code and reduce its arduous interview process after it saw many of its targeted candidates get lured away by the tech industry in the early 2000s.

However, in addition to investing in real estate in cities that will benefit from mass migration out of more expensive, more densely populated cities, also take a hard look in your back yard.