Menu
Just because you love visiting a particular city on vacation, it doesn’t mean it will be a perfect place to live. While some vacation destinations (like Orlando, for instance) actually provide a favorable cost of living, this article from Shelbi Austin of U.S. News highlights some factors to consider before turning your vacation town into your new hometown.
Have you ever taken a vacation somewhere and thought to yourself, “I wish I could live here”? The fact is, you could live in that vacation destination, but your brief experience spent as a tourist may not be the same as that of a resident.
When considering where they really want to live, people may not recognize what they actually need in order to move and live somewhere comfortably.
To help determine if your favorite vacation destination would make a great hometown, here are some things to consider before moving and committing to a life as a full-time resident and not just a part-time visitor.
Compare cost of living and the housing market. Vacations allow you to experience and see the best parts of a city. You get to leave behind the stresses of your everyday routine, only needing the funds, accommodations and travel arrangements for that short period of time you’re away. Home and rental costs can get pretty high in just about any major metro area, especially near the city center, leaving the more affordable housing located outside of the tourist zone, in the suburbs. If you’re considering moving down south to Orlando, Florida (No. 16 most desirable), you’ll find housing costs to be about $188,250 which is slightly lower than the national average.
Visit in the off-season. Prior to purchasing a home, potential homebuyers should plan to visit the location, possibly multiple times. This period of stay will provide a brief experience of what there is to expect if the homebuyer decides to commit to living there for years to come. Be sure to experience the area in the off-season, a time when tourists are the least likely to visit. Those less populated months will uncover those less marketable or unappealing qualities, such as unfavorable weather patterns, closed local attractions and nearly empty social spots.
Ensure job availability. Many hot vacation spots have specific industries that keep their economies stable – especially tourism and hospitality. Future homeowners should research the most popular industries within a given city and consider the job opportunities that may or may not be available to them.
College seniors who are graduating this spring may still have a lot to learn about managing their personal finances, especially during the first few years out of school – a period that can significantly impact your financial future. This U.S. News article by Geoff Williams offers some valuable advice from financial experts to help make your post-college life a lot easier.
That first job: It isn’t only about your salary. When you’re looking for your first post-college job and hoping it helps advance your career, remember to think beyond the numbers on the paycheck, advises Kristen Robinson, a Boston-based senior vice president at Fidelity Investments whose specialty is helping women and young investors.
“While it may seem natural to focus on just the salary, remember there’s more to evaluate when thinking about a job’s total financial compensation,” Robinson says, adding that you should look at whether you’re getting medical and retirement savings benefits that might make a difference to your bottom line if the actual money you’re getting every week seems paltry.
She cites a Fidelity Investment study finding that 76 percent of millennials relocate for a new job. “Cost of living and taxes should be top of mind when evaluating a job, as they can vary dramatically across the country,” she says.
In other words, you could be fooled into thinking you have a fat salary or end up turning down a well-compensated job if you haven’t factored in the benefits, cost of living or taxes.
Start saving for retirement immediately. You may decide it’s not feasible to enjoy the retirement benefits your company is offering if you suspect you won’t be there long. But if the offer is there, take advantage of it anyway, says Lucas Casarez, a wealth advisor at Keystone Financial Services in Loveland, Colorado.
Be cautious about accruing credit card debt. Yes, you’ve heard that before, especially growing up in the recession. Yet it’s so easy to forget when you’re on your own, eating ramen noodles and sitting in a lawn chair in your studio apartment. But when you hear your inner voice urging you to splurge on some new furniture, instead listen to Paul Kuzmickas, a bankruptcy attorney in Cleveland, Ohio.
Many of his clients are recent college graduates who don’t think about the long-term consequences of having too much credit card debt.
“Credit card purchases I often see include the latest smartphones, expensive laptops or paying for vacations without realizing how quickly credit card debt and the resulting interest can add up,” Kuzmickas says.
None of this means you shouldn’t use a credit card. “Some debt can be beneficial,” Kuzmickas says, referring to how a solid credit history will someday allow you to get a low-interest loan for something like a car or house.
But pay off your debts quickly, he urges.
Create a budget. This is probably the most important advice you can take, and probably the easiest to ignore if you don’t get into the habit of not just creating a budget, but following and continually updating it.
“Yes it’s cliché, but it’s imperative,” says Erin Ellis, an accredited financial counselor at Philadelphia Federal Credit Union. “For many college grads, this can be the first time they’re experiencing life with a disposable income. Don’t let that throw you off course.”
A rainy Spring day can be an ideal day to get things done inside your home. This BrightNest article by Amy Thomson offers some helpful rainy day home maintenance suggestions.
If the wet season has arrived in your area, it’s easy to sink into a little bit of a rain-rut. (That’s when you sip coffee under a blanket all day and watch the water droplets roll down your window.)
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a mellow day at home during the rain, but you’ll feel better if you tackle a few home tasks before getting under the blankets.
Here are five quick cleaning tasks that can make a rain day both enjoyable and productive.
Maintain your self-cleaning oven. This is a good one if you don’t plan on spending much time in your kitchen during the rainy day. Follow your oven’s directions and set up a self-cleaning cycle, then let that baby run. Your only task during this time is to keep your pets and kids away, as the oven will get very hot. But if you want to go the extra mile, complete a few routine checks that most self-cleaning ovens suggest like cleaning out any debris and replacing a burnt out oven light.
Change your air filter. This one is REALLY easy, and somehow easier to forget. Especially with allergy season coming, it’s time to freshen up your air flow. It will also likely knock some cash off your AC bill, too! You can save five to fifteen percent on your annual energy bill by routinely changing your air filter – the suggested routine is every month to every three months, minimum – according to Angie’s List.
[Read the full article for more tips:]
The home building industry celebrates New Homes Month in April by sharing the top features that will be seen in typical new homes built in 2016. Once again, builders are responding to what home buyers want by offering greater efficiency in the design and function of the home.
“Today’s new homes include features that will help homeowners reduce energy consumption and enhance the conveniences of modern living,” said Ed Brady, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). “Our builders are telling us that energy efficiency continues to be a top demand from consumers.”
NAHB recently surveyed builders about the features they are most likely to include in new homes they build this year. Four of the top 10 features focused on energy efficiency: low-E windows, Energy Star-rated appliances and windows, and programmable thermostats.
These features correspond to the list of features that consumers say are most important to them, as well.
Lennar’s The Home Within A Home® – is featured in this new article from Janet Morrissey of The New York Times. The article highlights the experiences of the Conrad family from Spanaway, Washington, and how Lennar’s multigenerational Next Gen homes were an ideal fit for them.
Bob and Myrna Conrad, both 65, share a house with their son Wade, 41, his wife Dana, 42, and their grandson Bryce, 21. Isn’t it crowded? Don’t they cramp one another’s style? Actually, no.
“We just set some ground rules, and it’s been working great,” said Wade Conrad, who has been living with his extended family since late 2013 in a NextGen multigenerational home, built by the Lennar Corporation, in Spanaway, Wash., near Tacoma.
The Conrads are among a growing number of families who are seeking specially designed homes that can accommodate aging parents, grown children and even boomerang children under the same roof.
The number of Americans living in multigenerational households — defined, generally, as homes with more than one adult generation — rose to 56.8 million in 2012, or about 18.1 percent of the total population, from 46.6 million, or 15.5 percent of the population in 2007, according to the latest data from Pew Research. By comparison, an estimated 28 million, or 12 percent, lived in such households in 1980.
Most multigenerational families, of course, live in ordinary houses, but the homebuilding industry is responding quickly to this shifting demand by creating homes specifically intended for such families.
The Lennar homes don’t offer just a spare bedroom suite or a “granny hut” that sits separately on the property or a room above a garage. The NextGen designs provide a separate entranceway, bedroom, living space, bathroom, kitchenette, laundry facilities and, in some cases, even separate temperature controls and separate garages with a lockable entrance to the main house. Family members can live under the same roof and not see one another for days if they so choose.
Multigenerational living is “growing in popularity,” said Robert Curran, a managing director at Fitch Ratings. With roughly 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day for the next 17 years, interest in such arrangements is unlikely to wane anytime soon.
Lennar was one of the first major builders to tap this market when it introduced its NextGen homes in 2012 in Phoenix.
“We were seeing a lot of people doubling up as a result of job losses or foreclosures, so we saw this as a solution to help accommodate that,” said Jeff Roos, a regional president at Lennar.
Lennar has since expanded the model to more than 200 communities in 24 markets.
A credit score is not the only thing that lenders look at when approving loans, according to this U.S. News article by Maryalene LaPonsie. Here are other factors that also play a role in credit decisions.
When it comes to good finances, credit scores get a lot of press. Based on a formula incorporating loan and repayment history, credit scores are often touted as the reason someone gets approved for a credit card, auto loan or mortgage – or denied one.
However, some financial experts say the role of credit scores may be overblown.
“It is a very useful tool, but it’s just one tool,” says Kathleen Lindquist, a certified financial planner with San Diego Wealth Management. In addition to credit scores, lenders may look at everything from your housing history to your social media presence and credit decisions.
Mortgage and subprime borrowers may be subject to even greater scrutiny. That isn’t to say credit scores aren’t important, but their role may vary significantly depending on a lender’s three-digit number. “If your score is greater than 750, the decision is made primarily on your credit score,” says Rich Hyde, chief operation officer of Prestige Financial, which specializes in auto loans for buyers with subprime credit.
People with lower numbers may find lenders begin asking for more documentation. However, that isn’t necessarily a bad sign. “We’re in the business of loaning money,” Hyde says. “We’re looking for the good things.”
Mortgage lenders also tend to have more stringent requirements, Lindquist says. Beyond a credit score, they also look for details regarding income and assets to determine whether a borrower will have the means to pay off a large loan with a long term.
All lenders have their own criteria, but commonly considered factors that can play a role in a credit decision include proof of income, investment statements, employment history, housing history, debt-to-income ratio and recent payment history.
There are several ways to boost the value of your home before you list it for sale. This article from Daniel Goldstein of MarketWatch offers a digital twist to that list, highlighting the importance of a great Wi-Fi connection and lots of USB ports to charge devices, along with smart doorbells and locks, and new lighting and climate control technologies.
If you’re thinking about selling your home this spring, plant some fresh flowers, give the house a fresh coat of paint – and boost your house’s Wi-Fi router speed.
Sabine Schoenberg, a realtor and luxury home builder in Greenwich, Conn., who runs her own home improvement website, says that when her buyers are interested in a property, the first thing they will do is pull out their phone and check the Internet connection. “I frequently get comments like, ‘I need to know that I can work from home,’” Schoenberg says.
That’s because many Americans are now only connected to the Internet via a cellular or Wi-Fi connection. Almost half (47%) of American homes in June 2015 had no landline, up from about 30% in 2010 and up 3.4% from the same period in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. (NCHS) Just a decade earlier, only about 5% of American homes were wireless-only, the NCHS said.
The Wi-Fi issue might not seem critical to empty nesters looking to down-size and sell their home, but for potential Millennial-age buyers, it increasingly is, says Schoenberg. More than two-thirds of all adults aged 25 to 34 were living in wireless-only households in 2015, the CDC reported.
Of course, a good Wi-Fi connection in your home isn’t the only “smart” technology out there to attract tech-oriented buyers. Even if many buyers haven’t put much thought into the really smart stuff, there’s one thing they are looking for, Schoenberg adds. Lots of USB ports to charge devices. “In the home I’m building, I’m putting them in everywhere,” she says.
While Millennials have been moving into U.S. cities and spiking urban population, that influx may have already reached its peak, according to urban planning professor Dowell Myers of the University of Southern California. This article from Natalie Delgadillo of CityLab highlights how cities may have reached “peak Millennial,” with a potential shift to suburban living.
For all the talk of city-loving Millennials, some surveys show that plenty of them actually prefer the suburbs overall, and still plan to move there eventually. Census data released last year suggests that the suburban shift may merely be being delayed, not foregone: while Americans aged 25 to 29 are moving to the suburbs today at a slower rate than they did in the mid-1990s, those aged 30 to 44 are moving there at a faster one.
USC urban planning professor Dowell Myers is among the doubters. At the University of Texas City Forum last month, he ventured that cities have reached “peak Millennial,” or the highest influx and presence of Millennials living in urban areas – and, he argues, it’s only going down from here.
In 2015, those Millennials born in 1990 – the largest cohort born in any one year – turned 25. Myers argues this is an important milestone, marking the year that Millennials begin to take their housing and work situations more seriously. Many of them have already made the jump from their parents’ homes or college into a city-center, where they’re living independently and focusing on their careers. “At this age, you’re likely a single adult who’s been out of college for a little while,” Myers says. “And you’re starting to get more serious about establishing your independent adult life.”
This group of Millennials, along with all the ones that came before, Myers says, have been flowing into cities and causing a spike in the urban population. But from now on, there will be fewer young people moving into cities, because there will simply be fewer of them period. If you imagine the inflow of young people to cities as a faucet in a bathtub, Myers says, that faucet has been turned up higher and higher for the last decade or so. But now, it’s finally being slightly turned down by the dip in total youth population numbers. Additionally, as the largest group of Millennials grows older, many of them will begin to make the shift into suburban family life.
The basic consequence? U.S. cities that have been growing could begin to lose people again. This is a cyclical process that’s happened many times before, Myers argues. There are rising and ebbing tides of young people at any given time, and in the past, rising tides have always been associated with the growth of city populations, and lower tides with city population loss.
As Winter turns to Spring, a perfect place to start Spring Cleaning in your home is in your closet. This BrightNest article from Kara Bennett offers some helpful tips for things you should toss in the trash – or donate – right now.
Old bags & purses. Over time, it’s easy to collect pocketbooks, handbags and backpacks that get used less and less. What felt fashionable just a year or two ago may feel outdated today. Let’s be honest, that’s probably why they’re pushed towards the back of your closet.
Itchy sweaters. You know the ones. They may look great, but if the uncomfortable material or tags will never stop bothering you, it’s not worth keeping this type of garment.
Warped or damaged shoes. It’s easy to amass a big collection of tennis shoes, summer sandals and flats, especially if the price is right. But over time, shoes can lose their shape, making them uncomfortable and actually cause pain to your feet and back. If any shoes have tears, worn-down heels or soles, give them the boot!
