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Each year, Livability.com ranks the best small to mid-sized cities in the U.S., based on criteria such as amenities, demographics, economy, education, health care, housing, social/civic capital and transportation/infrastructure. The new list for this year includes several places that Lennar also calls “home.” Here are ten of our favorite towns that made the list.
The Puget Sound, Capitol Lake and Capitol State Forest are just some of the natural amenities surrounding Olympia, Washington. Evergreen State College and Saint Martin’s University form the base of the city’s excellent educational system. Animal Fire Theater and Harlequin Productions are just some of the theatrical options available in Olympia, which has a thriving arts scene.
Located at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Longmont, Colorado offers not only easy access to spectacular hiking and mountain adventures but a thriving arts scene, great schools, affordable housing options, and quality health care. Longmont recently became a certified creative district for the state and features galleries, art exhibits and shops. A network of paved trails leads to more than 75 works of art located throughout the city.
Overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, just south of Tampa Bay, Sarasota, Florida includes a string of eight islands that draw thousands of tourists. It’s an appealing destination for tourists, which is why it landed on our list of the Best Spring Break Cities for Families. Locals enjoy year-round access to beautiful beaches, challenging golf courses, a collection of lakes and a thriving downtown. The Sarasota Opera and Florida Studio Theater anchor the city’s arts and culture scene, while craft breweries, restaurants, shops and galleries provide many entertainment options.
Downtown Chapel Hill, North Carolina bustles with activity as people head to the Carolina Brewery for drinks, Varsity Theater for movies, and Sugarland for coffee and creme brulee. The city’s ripe arts and cultural scene attracts many people. Known for its quality schools and top-ranked medical facilities, Chapel Hill offers a small-town feel with big-time cultural attractions. The presence of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, gives residents college teams to cheer for and a variety of events to attend.
Surrounded by 15 ski resorts, more than 50 golf courses and dozens of hiking trails, fishing holes, and mountain drives, Reno, Nevada is well worth a look. The city’s outdoor activities, arts scene and affordable housing options make a strong case for why Reno is a Top 100 Best Place to Live. For those looking to party, Reno’s nightlife is hard to beat with a downtown full of nightclubs, bars and art galleries. But there are plenty of family-friendly things to do as well.
Consistently used by Hollywood filmmakers as the setting of major motion pictures, Irvine, California also consistently ranks as one of the Best Places to Live, starting with our 2014 list. Schools in Irvine are highly rated, and the city’s low crime rate makes it a safe place to live. Home to more than 10 college campuses, Irvine’s economy is rooted in technology and education.
An excellent amenities package, highly engaged residents and great schools help make Alexandria, Virginia one of the best places to live. This suburb of Washington D.C. provides a quaint escape from the high-powered wheeling and dealing found in the nation’s capital thanks to well-preserved historic districts, which include unique restaurants and shops. It’s been named one of the Best Cities for Liberals. Home to a Northern Virginia Community College campus, Alexandria includes an assortment of parks and walking trails, some of which overlook the Potomac River.
Outdoor lovers can’t help but admire the natural beauty that surrounds Bothell, Washington, from dense forests to pristine rivers. The city’s small-town vibe has made it a draw for families, while its well educated workforce has attracted several biotechnology companies that have boasted the local economy. Anchoring the educational system in Bothell is Cascadia College and the University of Washington branch.
Already identified as one of the Top 10 Best Cities for Families, Plano, Texas provides residents with great schools and community leaders who put children first. A look at the top employers in Plano is like looking at who’s who list of American companies. The city contains more than 3,800 acres of parkland and open space.
Located 50 miles south of Washington, D.C., Fredericksburg, Virginia was a key player in the Civil War and attracts 1.5 million visitors annually who tour battlefields, museums, and other historic sites. A 40-block, 350-building Fredericksburg Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and students have access to a four-year University of Mary Washington. One of the largest shopping malls on the East Coast – Central Park – is in Fredericksburg.
Growing demand for rental homes in the U.S. and a more limited supply of rental housing is causing the cost of renting to continue higher, with the latest figures for August showing 58 straight months of increasing rental costs. In this article from MarketWatch, Jeffry Bartash highlights some of the details from the latest government report.
Americans who rent instead of owning are still on track to experience the biggest increase in housing costs in seven years.
The cost of rent in the United States rose in August for the 58th straight month, with prices up 3.6% in the past year, the government reported Wednesday. That matches the highest year-over-year increase in rent since 2008.
Prices are climbing fastest in big cities where many millennials have flocked to live and work. A surge in hiring over the past few years has also given more Americans the financial means to obtain their own places to live.
Builders have ramped up construction on condos, townhouses and other rental properties, but not enough yet to slow the increase in prices.
Yet for lots of households, housing costs are fairly stable and in many cases much lower compared to five or 10 years ago. Millions of people have refinanced their mortgages to reduce their housing costs or taken advantage of ultra-low interest rates when buying a home.
Even home owners face potentially higher costs each year through increases in property taxes or home insurance. But those increases tend to be smaller and more irregular compared to rental costs.
Owning or renting a home near a transit station may not have much impact on whether a person commutes via their car or some form of non-car transportation, but closer proximity of their work location to a transit station increases the likelihood that they won’t be driving their own car to work. Those are the findings of a recent study from researchers at the University of Denver, as reported in this CityLab article from Eric Jaffe.
In an ideal transit city, where commuting by bus or rail is as convenient as taking a car, the trip between station and home or office is a quick one. But in the typical city, where transit-oriented development remains a work in progress, one end of the commute might be much more accessible than the other. So which is more likely to get commuters out of their cars: living near a stop, or working near one?
A trio of researchers at the University of Denver recently tried to answer that question for the Mile High metro – an area that’s made a big push in recent years to expand both transit service and transit-oriented development. They analyzed the 2009-2010 commute patterns of 3,400 employed locals who either lived, worked, or lived and worked near three of the region’s light rail lines. “Near” in this case meant being within a mile, half-mile, or 15-minute walk of a station.
As expected, people who both lived and worked near a light rail station had the highest transit commute shares. More surprisingly, commuters who worked near light rail had much stronger transit commute habits than those who lived near it. Those with offices within a mile of transit had a 26 percent transit commute share; those with homes, meanwhile, had a mere 11 percent – lower than the overall regional average. At the half-mile mark, those shares rose to 31 percent for office proximity and 18 percent for home proximity. At the 15-minute threshold they hit 37 and 26 percent, respectively.
In other words, far more commuters made the trip to work without a car when their office was near transit than when their home was near it – regardless how the researchers defined “near.”
Earlier this week, CoreLogic released the results of its newest quarterly Homeowner Equity Report, indicating a large reduction in the number of homeowners with negative equity. The results of the report are highlighted in this article from Brian Honea, writing for DS News.
Approximately three-quarters of a million single-family residential homes regained equity in the second quarter of 2015, bringing the nationwide total of mortgaged residential properties with equity up to 45.9 million (91%), according to data released by CoreLogic on Tuesday.
The number of homes regaining equity totaled about 759,000 for Q2, which translated to a year-over-year increase in borrower equity of about $691 million for the quarter. About 8.7% of all residential homes with a mortgage, or about 4.4 million properties, were in negative equity in Q2 2015 – both declines from 10.9% and 5.4 million from the same quarter a year earlier.
“For much of the country, the negative equity epidemic is lifting. The biggest reason for this improvement has been the relentless rise in home prices over the past three years which reflects increasing money flows into housing and a lack of housing stock in many markets,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “CoreLogic predicts home prices to rise an additional 4.7% over the next year, and if this happens, 800,000 homeowners could regain positive equity by July 2016.”
Homeowners with negative equity owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth and are often referred to as “upside down” or “underwater” homeowners. Declines in home values or increases in mortgage debts, or a combination of both, can cause a negative equity situation in a home.
The National Association of Home Builders released its homebuilder sentiment index today for the month of September, hitting its highest level since nearly a decade ago. Here’s the report from The Wall Street Journal.
A gauge of homebuilder sentiment this month rose to its highest level since November 2005, a sign the U.S. housing market is shaking off worries about the global economy and volatile financial markets.
An index of builder confidence in the market for new single-family homes rose to a seasonally adjusted level of 62 in September, the National Association of Home Builders said Wednesday. A reading over 50 means most builders generally see conditions as positive.
The index stood at 61 in August and 60 in July. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected a reading of 61 in September.
The index has been positive since July 2014, following five months in early 2014 when sentiment fell into in negative territory.
“Today’s report is consistent with our forecast,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “Barring any unexpected jolts, we expect housing to keep moving forward at a steady, modest rate through the end of the year.”
In late August, the Commerce Department reported new-home sales rose by 5.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 507,000, after unexpectedly sinking in June. Sales of existing homes climbed to their precession pace in July, the National Association of Realtors reported in August.
Reporting on the continuing recovery of the housing industry, Mitchell Hartman of Marketplace highlights how younger homebuyers are showing signs of re-entering the market.
The housing industry appears to finally be in broad recovery mode after years of struggle following the official end of the recession in 2009. Housing starts and sales are rising, home prices are increasing steadily, mortgage rates remain low, and fewer people are stuck in underwater mortgages, locking them in place and making it difficult to sell.
And one key demographic group that could fuel the housing recovery now shows signs of re-entering the market as well: people under 35. This group’s homeownership rate peaked in 2006 and has been declining ever since, falling to just below 35 percent in the second quarter of 2015. But that rate may have bottomed out and started to rebound. Household formation has begun rising after falling during and after the recession. The birthrate also appears to be inching up after declining for nearly a decade.
Hayley Johansen and Marcus Kienlen are in their mid-20s and just purchased their first home in suburban Portland, Oregon. They paid $325,000 for a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch home, which was well within their price range (both are engineers associated with Intel’s huge semiconductor complex here).
“We watched a lot of ‘House Hunters,’” says Hayley Johansen, sitting in her new carpeted living room, still sparsely furnished. The couple are about to get married, so cash has been tight.
“We decided we wanted a place of our own and didn’t want to keep paying rent. We actually want to be putting it into something and make it our own,” she says.
Kienlen chimes in. “We really wanted some land and privacy,” he says, looking out the sliding patio doors to a midsized backyard. “We wanted to get a dog, and have outdoor barbecues and hang out.”
Fannie Mae recently surveyed young renters and found that the steep fall in homeownership among people under 35 might be more a matter of personal finances and the overall economy than a lifestyle choice. The survey found that 90 percent plan to own a home eventually. But many think it will be difficult for them to save for a down payment or get a mortgage (73 percent of young renters say it would be very difficult to get a mortgage, compared to 50 percent of the general population).
In this article from Bankrate, Marcie Geffner offers some valuable advice on how a divorce can affect your credit, and how you can take steps to build your credit history.
Divorce can be hard on your personal finances, particularly if you haven’t established credit in your own name.
If you have no credit, or a thin credit file, getting credit when you need it, perhaps to rent a car, buy an airline ticket or shop online, could be challenging.
This happens more often to older women who weren’t the primary income earners in their household while they were married, says Ronit Rogoszinski, a wealth adviser at Arch Financial Group in New York’s Long Island.
“A lot of women just never got the Visa or MasterCard or American Express,” Rogoszinski says.
The best way to fix the problem is to avoid it by establishing separate credit while your marriage is still happy, says Rod Griffin, director of public education at the credit bureau Experian.
“Ideally, you maintain an individual account or 2 in your own name in the event that something unexpected happens,” Griffin says.
That could be a divorce or some other financial calamity.
A small purchase every few months typically is enough to keep an account open and active.
Another approach is to establish separate credit during the divorce, using the primary wage-earner’s income and credit history to qualify, says Lili Vasileff, founder of Divorce and Money Matters, a divorce financial planning firm in Greenwich, Connecticut.
The 1st step is to obtain your own credit report. This report can help you find out credit that’s open in your name, debts you don’t know about (if any), and credit reporting errors that can be corrected.
It’s also a good idea to find what points, airline miles and other perks are associated with various accounts. Vasileff says these are marital assets and can be subject to negotiation during the divorce.
The next step is to open a major credit card in your own name “as if everything is normal,” Vasileff says. Then get a car loan, open a bank account, sign a rental agreement or take other actions to establish separate personal finances.
“These little, small steps are very key,” Vasileff says. “Because then, by the time you’re divorced, you’re up and running and have things you can point to.”
No matter how serious you are about creating a budget and sticking to it, an unreasonable goal here and a little overspending there can spoil your budgeting plans quickly. This article from U.S. News outlines five reasons why following a budget can be difficult, and offers some advice on how to overcome those challenges.
Making a budget is easy compared to following it. Maybe that’s why so few people even bother creating one.
For instance, last year’s Consumer Financial Literacy Survey from the National Foundation for Credit Counseling found that 2 out of 5 adults have a budget and keep close track of their spending – meaning 3 out of 5 adults say, “No thanks, not for me.” A 2013 Gallup poll made a similar conclusion, finding that 2 out of 3 Americans don’t budget. And you probably have your own anecdotal evidence, whether from personal experience or just seeing friends and family struggle, indicating what everyone knows: Budgeting is right up there with dieting, training for a marathon and learning to juggle.
But why is following a budget so hard? Let’s count the ways …
Budgets restrict you. You are a caged bird. You are a country under a dictatorship. You are an overpriced sandwich. In other words, you want to be free. Budgets try to control your spending, and perhaps you don’t want to be controlled.
“People struggle following a budget because it is restrictive and time consuming,” says Peter Lazaroff, a wealth manager with Plancorp, a wealth management firm in St. Louis. “Traditional budgeting forces you to make every decision as if you live in a spreadsheet. But guess what? You don’t live in a spreadsheet.”
“The tough part of budgeting is that you just never know what will come up,” says Bianca Lee, owner of White Rose Marketing Solutions in New York City. “And something always comes up. The girlfriend’s trip to Mexico, a speeding ticket, vet bills for the cats … It’s impossible to plan for everything, and if it were possible, it would make for a super boring existence.”
None of this means that it’s fruitless to attempt to budget, but clearly, you have to come up with something that works for you, your lifestyle and your income.
You lack financial education. It isn’t your fault; blame your school. According to the Council for Economic Education’s biennial survey, last released in 2014, 17 states currently require that students at public high schools take a personal finance class before graduation, but only six states actually test the students on personal finance concepts. Sad as this is, it’s a huge improvement on previous years; before the recession, hardly any state mandated personal finance classes in schools. But, still, plenty of children are currently not being taught the basics of personal finance like budgeting, which translates into adults who still don’t know how to budget.
You’re too emotional. Don’t feel bad. Just about everyone is too emotional to maintain a budget. You almost have to reach into a TV series to think of people, albeit fictional ones, who budget well.
“Budgets are made with logic. Purchase decisions are made with emotion. We buy things based on how we think they will make us feel. So budgets and spending are incompatible,” says a sympathetic Martin Hurlburt, the Salt Lake City co-founder of T.M. Wealth Management, which also has an office in New York City.
That budgeting and spending are incompatible doesn’t mean you can’t budget successfully, Hurlburt says. But everyone has a unique money personality, he says, and it helps to understand how yours works.
“Without addressing this primary issue, most plans are doomed to fail as soon as they are written. Because they don’t address what drives our money choices,” Hurlburt says.
Recent findings indicate that flame retardants in U.S. furniture – especially couches – are on the rise. While flame retardants are meant to prevent or suppress the spread of fire, their chemicals may also be harmful to families who are exposed to them. According to Scientific American, most furniture does not carry labels that provide information to consumers, so it’s unknown whether there are health risks from the newer flame retardants. This article from The Atlantic highlights the issue, and provides a list of furniture stores that have started phasing out the use of flame retardants.
It’s not just firefighters’ health that might be threatened by flame retardants, which still lace most furniture and electronics. Even in the absence of a fire, our sofas and TVs are constantly sloughing off these chemicals, which some studies link to thyroid and other endocrine problems.
Some types of flame retardants, called PBDEs, have been phased out, but their replacements might also be harmful. There is evidence that people have traces of flame retardants in their bodies. Toddlers tend to have higher levels because they crawl on couch cushions and put their hands in their mouths.
We won’t know the full health impacts of these chemicals until studies prove a causal link. In the meantime, if you want to stay as flame-retardant free as possible, the Environmental Working Group and NRDC have compiled lists of furniture stores that have started phasing out flame retardants this year.
