In reading a few great articles this week regarding “loving your house again,” I find myself smiling. Let me share:
Chris Ayres of the LA Times wrote this greatopinion piece about “forgetting the doom and gloom about the tanking market. You made a smart investment.” He makes so many great points for the many of us that bought houses in the last few years during the “real estate boom.” We find ourselves stuck reading so much doom and gloom lately, but here’s someone who has taken the time to break things down and make it all not seem so bad. I’m always looking for some good news in the media…(check my blog from August 6th) He makes great points about what a great investment time period it was – the interest rates most people got during those times are amazing! A good interest rate on a loan can offset many losses in depreciation. Uncle Sam makes owning a home here in the United States a huge financial bonus – giving us the glorious home mortgage interest tax deduction!
Secondly, we do a lot of staging of seller’s properties and funny enough, we hear the same thing over and over…”Boy, maybe we want to stay now that the house looks so good.” In an article dated in Feb 2008, Beth Teitell from the Boston Globe, writes about “loving your house again” as well. She gets right to the point I just mentioned….love your house. Act like you “like your house” and clear it out, make it someplace you want to live, decorate it! I’m amazed at how some people live in their homes. It’s similar with peoples cars too though. They will drive it around dirty and with tons of dings and dents, bad tires, stained carpets, and soiled interiors. But if those people went to sell their car, they most likely would get that car detailed (and may realize at that point that they may want to keep the car since it looks so good now!)
The third great article bringing us to “Love our house again” – is about the increasingly popular “Staycation.” Debra Alban of CNN brings us “Staycations: An Alternative to Pricey, Stressful Travel.” More and more people are choosing to stay home for vacation instead of paying to stay somewhere else…especially if they have a nice place to call home! If you’ve spent any money at all on “landscaping” the back yard you might as well get some use out of it! In most cases it’s nicer than where you will go (and pay to go.) You can certainly relax more at home and not feel like you have to “go, go, go just to get your money’s worth. Boy, if you live here in the South Bay – Hollywood Riviera, Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach, any of the Beach Cities – it doesn’t get much better than here to have a “staycation!” So enjoy the last few weeks of summer and Love Your House Again!
I guess great minds think alike, here is an article written by a colleague, Elaine Carlson, also of Re/Max Palos Verdes about the same LA Times article – http://palosverdessource.com/2008/08/18/do-you-love-your-house/
Article One – http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-ayres17-2008aug17,0,1698378.story
Article Two – http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/house/articles/2008/02/14/love_the_one_youre_with/
Article Three – http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/06/12/balance.staycation/