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If you’re considering purchasing a home with a friend and sharing a mortgage, this new article from The New York Times offers some valuable advice.
Young adults stuck in expensive rentals may be tempted to pool resources with friends to buy a shared home.
This type of arrangement can potentially cut buyers’ individual expenses, while providing them with a potential equity gain and a mortgage interest tax deduction. But these ventures can also end badly if buyers assume that friendship alone will see them through any future difficulty.
Before applying for a mortgage, the co-borrowers should fully reveal their income, debt and credit status to each other, said Mike Venable, a senior vice president and head of underwriting for retail bank operations at TD Bank. “It definitely needs to be someone you really trust,” he said.
Co-buyers should be aware that the mortgage underwriter will base their eligibility on the lower of their credit scores, just as with married couples jointly applying for a loan. They should carefully consider the stability of each other’s income, and how long one buyer could cover the mortgage if the other fell short.
Mr. Venable also recommends planning upfront for how home repairs, insurance and other expenses would be managed in a detailed co-ownership agreement.
Of all the taxes we pay, the local property tax is probably the hardest to understand for most people. As the oldest tax levied in the United States, it remains an essential tax for most local governments today. This article from The New York Times provides some insight on how the taxes we pay for our property have a positive effect on our local economies.
A 2008 study by researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development looked at a number of countries and found that taxes on real property caused the least drag on gross domestic product per dollar of revenue raised. Next came sales taxes, personal income taxes and corporate income taxes. In other words, property taxes were the best way to collect revenue without hurting the economy too much.
Real property is an excellent tax base because it can’t be moved and it lasts a long time. In the case of land, it usually lasts forever. We, as economic actors, cannot respond to a higher tax on land by reducing the amount of land that exists. We may change what buildings to construct and where, but once a building exists, it’s not likely to move in response to tax changes.
In rare cases, property taxes can get so high that they encourage people to abandon their property (see Detroit). But in general, property taxes simply lead to an efficient transfer of wealth from property owners to the government. That’s not necessarily lovely for property owners, but we need to finance government somehow, and it’s best for the economy that the manner be an efficient one.
Governments were caught off guard as the recession hit. Property tax was the only major state and local government tax that held up well in the Great Recession. In most states, property tax collections are devised to grow in a stable, steady manner, with the tax rate falling when property values spike and rising when they fall.
Property tax has grown as a share of total state and local government receipts since 2007, because sales and income taxes have been so extraordinarily weak in the recession and its aftermath that property tax has grown by comparison.
That growth serves as a reminder of the virtue of property tax: In good times or bad, it provides a stable, efficient source of revenue.
According to the newest realtor.com Hotness Index for the month of June, California and Texas are home to the hottest real estate markets in the U.S. The index identifies the top 20 markets where buyers are eagerly seeking homes, and where sales are closing quickly. The top 20 list includes San Francisco, Denver, Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, San Diego, Austin and San Antonio.
Summer is officially here, and just like the heat waves sweeping through much of the country, the real estate market shows no sign of cooling off any time soon, according to a preliminary analysis of June data for realtor.com.
“Our early read of real estate trends in June suggests good news ahead for the U.S. residential real estate market, especially in the hottest markets with healthy growth in supply,” said realtor.com chief economist Jonathan Smoke, who conducted the analysis.
California again dominated the hottest markets list, with almost half of the country’s 20 hottest real estate markets. This is because supply is tight and the state’s strong economy is fueling demand.
With all the festivities and the fireworks bursting in air, Independence Day can be a scary and dangerous day for your pets. In this article from The Huffington Post, veterinarian Dr. Karen Becker offers advice on some advance planning you can do to prevent problems for your pet on July 4th.
While holiday festivities are typically non-stop fun for human family members, often the same can’t be said for the four-legged members of the household.
Sadly, July 5 is the busiest day of the year for animal shelters simply because so many pets panic at the sound of firecrackers, escape through an open door or window, and disappear into the night. Many turn up miles from home – frightened, disoriented, dehydrated, and sometimes injured. Others are lost forever.
There are a number of hazards you’ll want avoid or at least be aware of to insure the safety and health of your pet over the holiday weekend.
Don’t allow your pet outside, especially after dark. If she’ll be within range of the sights and sounds of fireworks, try to secure her in a room without windows. Create a safe haven with bedding, a toy or two, and a few treats. Turn on a TV, radio or other music to help muffle the noise from outside. Leave someone at home with your pet if possible, but whatever you do, don’t leave her outside alone. If she becomes frightened, even a fenced yard may not keep her safe. Dogs have been injured while making panicked attempts to escape their yard, and those that succeed can run away, be hit by a car, or stolen by a stranger.
Don’t take your dog or cat around backyard or neighborhood fireworks displays. And make sure to store personal fireworks where your pet can’t get them. Pets have been known to swallow unexploded firecrackers, and it’s also important to remember that an animal’s fur coat is highly flammable.
Also, don’t give your pet access to glow jewelry. If eaten, it can cause excessive drooling, GI irritation, and potentially, intestinal blockage.
The great American author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau once asked, “What is the use of a house, if you don’t have a decent planet to put it on?” Of course, he asked that question some time in the mid 1800s, so he probably wasn’t thinking about adding solar panels to his roof. Nonetheless, it’s a question that still resonates today as so many citizens of our planet are looking for new ways to green up their homes and their lifestyles.
But as highlighted in this article, conflicting information about what constitutes a green choice can leave many people stalled with indecision. For those who are having trouble sorting through it all, Bankrate outlines 10 green myths, along with some real information, to make it easier.
When it comes to selecting greener choices, sometimes it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction. Depending on whom you believe, a more eco-friendly lifestyle can either seem exciting, empowering and financially enriching – or depressing, deprived and expensive.
One of your biggest weapons in the green movement is your own wallet. Recent numbers demonstrate that a few smarter buying decisions translate to big changes in the planet. One that’s fairly easy: When you buy household paper goods (like paper towels, napkins, toilet paper and copy paper), look for products that use high percentages of recycled or post-consumer waste.
While some greener options (like some organic products) do cost more, others (like turning out lights, using water-saving faucets and keeping the thermostat at a reasonable temperature) are money-smart strategies, too.
There’s never just one “right” answer to an eco-dilemma. The paper or plastic debate is the best example of this. Not even the experts can agree which is a more eco-friendly way to carry home groceries. The better answer, of course, is neither: Bring your own cloth bags to the store.
According to Fannie Mae’s latest Housing Insight report, Millennials’ desire for single-family homes is robust, and should strengthen in the years ahead as this generation enters their 30s, which the report calls “prime years for first-time homeownership.” This article from HousingWire highlights some of the details from the report.
Young adults prefer single-family homes, and in fact, 25-34 year-old homeowners are found to be more likely to reside in a single-family home today than their predecessors, according to the latest Housing Insight Report from Fannie Mae.
The report challenges popular perceptions by showing that today’s young adults, like their predecessors, have a strong preference for single-family homes.
As for why there is a rising popularity of single-family homes, Fannie said that tightened credit standards might have shifted the distribution of homebuyers toward more affluent households.
“Given that housing consumption increases with income, it might then follow that single-family homes, which are typically larger and more expensive than other housing types, would capture an increased share of purchases among all young adults,” the report said.
In this new article from BUILDER, John McManus takes a deep look into RealtyTrac’s U.S. Home & Foreclosure Sales Report for May, and highlights some very promising results for the housing market.
It’s official. It took six grueling years since the Great Recession ended, but now, the housing recovery enters the second half of 2015 as a fundamentals-driven rebound.
What does it mean now that housing – and its infinite mosaic of geographical fiefdoms down to the submarket and lot-line level – has healed its gravest wounds? What does it mean to developers and builders that buyers and sellers of home properties are people to people, not desperate people to institutions? What does it mean when we say that a housing cycle’s trajectory has moved decisively from a focus on investors’ resources to an exchange of values from owner-occupier to someone who wants to be an owner-occupier of a primary residence?
RealtyTrac’s latest U.S. Home & Foreclosure Sales Report shows that all of the benchmarks for abnormal residential real estate behavior – cash sales, distressed sales, bank-owned sales, and in-foreclosure sales – dramatically subsided in the past month and, even more dramatically so in the past 12 months.
The U.S. Commerce Department released its construction spending report for the month of May, indicating the highest level of spending on construction since the recession, as reported in this article from The Wall Street Journal.
U.S. construction spending hit a new postrecession peak in May, a likely boost for the economy in the second quarter of the year.
U.S. construction spending advanced 0.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.036 trillion in May, the highest level since October 2008, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.
The measure has been climbing steadily since December and in March broke $1 trillion for the first time since 2008.
In May, spending on private nonresidential building led the way, climbing 1.5% to $393 billion, the highest figure since December 2008. Manufacturing spending has been especially robust over the past year.
Overall, spending on all private construction – residential and nonresidential – was the highest since July 2008.
As we celebrate the anniversary of America’s independence this weekend, BUILDER takes us on a fascinating tour of five of the most iconic homes of our nation’s Founding Fathers, which are all still standing today. Check out the article and pay a virtual visit to the homes of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton and Franklin.
As Independence Day approaches, Americans prepare to celebrate the freedom won by the country’s founding fathers during the Revolutionary War and with documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
When these men weren’t out fighting wars or helping to found a country, they enjoyed time at home with their families, according to www.constitutionfacts.com. In fact, many of them designed and ran their family’s estates, where they could retreat from the chaos of Colonial times.
Today, these homes are popular tourist destinations, drawing crowds from all over the world interested in learning how America’s original leaders lived. In fact, many of these homes would not be the living history symbols they are today without extensive restoration work.
