Roxy's Real Estate News Blog: May 2021

Saturday, May 22, 2021

'Aging in Place' Helps To Fuel Housing Shortage

As the baby boomer generation has aged, it has also stayed put. And for all the innovations
builders and product manufacturers have come up with to help seniors “age in place.” they may have also made it difficult for would-be homebuyers, causing a lack of housing inventory.

According to a new report from Freddie Mac, 2019 will see a significant shortage of available homes here in the U.S., failing to meet needs by 2.5 million units. It doesn’t help that at the same time millennials are buying fewer homes at this point in their lives compared with previous generations at similar periods.

As seniors continue to prefer to stay where they are as the optimal way to live out their remaining years, housing inventory has tightened nationally. According to the report, for people between the ages of 67 and 87, homeownership rates dropped by 11.6 percent for previous generations but only 3.6 percent for the current (leading edge) generation of seniors, identified as having been born between 1931 and 1941.

New advances in information technology may be the culprit, as well as accessibility to better healthcare and education, with the report crediting those advancements as “boosting and extending” housing demand among seniors. The result? The current senior generation has become much slower in transitioning out of homeownership than prior generations. Reverse Mortgage is another retirement tool being used to keep seniors in their home.

The U.S. Census Bureau says lost units will need to be replenished at a rate of 350,000 homes per year in order to bring the market to a “well-functioning” status. “Vacant homes increase liquidity in the market, enable prospective buyers to find a match, and give prospective sellers confidence to list their home for sale,” the Freddie Mac report states. “Vacancy rates are an important indicator of housing market vitality. Too high a vacancy rate reflects a moribund market, while too low of a rate reduces the efficiency of the marketplace.”

While this does not bode well for home shoppers, it will boost spending on renovations, according to Chief Economist Sam Kater. “We believe the additional demand for homeownership from seniors aging in place will increase the relative price of owning versus renting, making renting more attractive to younger generations.” If that is true, however, those in a position to purchase the limited number of homes available may well see their property values increase more quickly than anticipated.

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Roxy Redenbaugh, Broker

Sr Mortgage Consultant

Residential and Commercial

www.roxyloans.com

The Greatest Compliment I Can Receive Is A Referral From Friends, Family, and Business Associates,

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Source: Realtor, Reversemortgagedaily, FreddieMacTBWS

Friday, May 14, 2021

Staying Sane As Work-From-Home Realities Continue

Today, millions are working productively from home, and even when it felt feasible for employers
to ask them to start their commute once again, many have extended the work-from-home option into 2021. But how has this played out with remote workers? Did their giddiness to set up a laptop and work in their sweats last?

In the best of times, working from home is associated with all sorts of positive emotions for remote workers — freedom, autonomy, trust and happiness, to name just a few. Indeed, remote work is often considered the ‘holy grail’ of flexible work options, with benefits galore that far outweigh any potential downsides. Working from home during the pandemic, however, is not welcomed by all. Juggling personal and professional priorities without access to many of our normal outlets can weigh down on many of us.

It may well be that the key to handling working remotely is accepting (instead of resisting) some of the negative emotions that comes along with it. Trying to develop an “attitude of gratitude’ may well be one of the quickest paths to a positive, happy outlook. While it may feel cathartic to complain, in one study, participants who wrote a few sentences a week for 10 weeks about things they were grateful for were more optimistic and felt better about their lives than those who wrote about what irritated them.

So what can you be grateful for? A supportive boss? Being able to watch your kids grow up and have more time with them? Having more time for self-care? “How you frame something in your mind determines how you experience it. ...So, if you approach things with a ‘glass half-empty’ attitude, you’ll tend to experience them as lacking. Fortunately, you are in complete control of your mindset.”

Other ways to happily accept your remote fate include setting up an efficient, comfortable
home office instead of taking up space on the sofa with your laptop. Even if your dining room table is all that is available, consider surrounding yourself with things that make you happy — plants, photos of the family, and artwork. Design a backdrop that makes your Zoom meetings look professional once that laptop camera turns on.

Remember the routines you once had when getting ready for work? Develop new ones and stick to them. Perhaps that means getting out of bed and stretching, doing a few minutes of meditation, and then heading to the Nespresso machine. Set up designated break times all day long and tell your boss, co-workers, and family members when you will be available to them.

Bonding with others and feeling like you’re part of a community is key for staying upbeat, so work on developing your work relationships remotely....“Virtual meet-ups, instant messages, group chats and other forms of remote communication can all help.” Productive hours (when you’re “in the zone”) should be focused on getting your best work completed.

Instead of scrolling through your phone while you eat lunch, take the time to “play” at something you really love. “Spending 30 minutes between meetings doing something you enjoy can temper any stress or negative feelings you’ve been having.” If you take care of you, you show up for others when they truly need you. Don’t let self-care slip by the wayside.

Adequate sleep, good lighting, healthy eating, limiting sugar and alcohol, and exercising are all ways to use self-care to combat stress. Taking the time to be outdoors helps tremendously as well. Courtney cites studies that showed that those who spent more time outdoors (even just walking around the block or visiting a local park) reported better sleep and felt significantly less anxiety, stress, and depression than those who spent less than 30 minutes outdoors each day.