Real Estate

Now that I’ve published the 2024 S&P 500 predictions, let’s look at the 2024 housing market predictions by various industry experts. The forecast for 2024 home prices ranged from -1.7% to +4.1% when I first published this post at the end of 2024. Now as of January 29, 2024, the 2024 home price forecasts have […]

Just like how the purchase price of a car is not the entire cost, the purchase price of a house is not the entire cost either. Let’s discuss all the surprising costs that may come after you close escrow. First of all, these are the unsurprising costs after you purchase a home: If you follow

Partially thanks to high mortgage rates, the percentage of homebuyers who pay cash has risen. As of September 2023, according to Redfin, 34.1% of U.S. home purchases were made in cash. This is up from 29.5% in September 2022, when mortgage rates were lower. In 2025, the percentage of homebuyers who pay cash is likely

Selling bonds to buy real estate is a much easier decision to make than selling stocks to buy real estate. Real estate acts like a bond plus investment because bonds have more similarities to real estate than stocks do. The word “plus” is added to bonds to describe real estate as a type of bond

One of the best ways to get a better deal on a home is by paying cash. Sellers prefer all-cash offers because there’s less risk the transaction will fall through once in escrow. As a result, some sellers are willing to discount the sales price or take your cash offer over another offer with a

As a real estate investor since 2003, I’ve been disappointed by the real estate buying and selling process for a long time. While transaction costs have declined to zero or near zero for every industry due to technology, real estate commissions have remained stubbornly high. Could real estate collusion be involved? After I sold a rental

With money market interest rates so high, every day you delay closing escrow is one more day of free interest income. You could feasibly extend your escrow period so long that the extra interest income you earn pays for all your closing costs and then some. I’ve argued why buying a home with contingencies is

Local economic catalysts are important for supporting the value of your home. Therefore, before buying a house, you must look into the future as to what might affect the demand for housing in your target neighborhood. We can’t control what the Federal Reserve does with interest rates. We also can’t force the federal government to

Housing affordability is at or near an all-time low and the Fed is partly to blame due to its aggressive rate hikes in such a short time frame. The Federal government is also partly to blame due to excess stimulus spending during the pandemic. However, this is not a post about who is to blame

We’ve all heard of men buying midlife crisis cars to feel more alive (or make up for shortcomings). But what about buying a midlife crisis house? Have you ever thought of such an interesting phenomenon? Let’s say you’re living in a perfectly fine house that fits all your needs. It has the best layout with