Happy Labor Day

My husband and I were talking about an upcoming trip to see a music festival where he wanted to request 2 days back to back off. He said he had to use a vacation day. We have this dream/goal of getting to Hawaii this summer to celebrate our oldest daughter’s graduation, so he needs to save all the vacation days. I was confused. Why, when you get 2 days off a week any way, finally, do you have to use a vacation day? “They just don’t do that.”

Look, I know employment is sketchy these days. After COVID people are worried about their jobs. Layoff and furloughs did some damage to the human psyche. Companies that were able to create ways to keep employees on staff, whether by creating WFH procedures or creatively keeping customers and clients paying are the REAL HEROS of Labor Day this year! My favorite story is the joint task force created in a local town by a coffee shop, a restaurant, and an old abandoned drive-thru back. The creativity we’ve seen in the last year to keep businesses afloat and employees paid is a new definition of Labor Day.

Read their story…

BUT we still have Labor Laws on the books and hanging on a poster in your break room! Many companies that I personally know crossed those lines in the early days of the pandemic. I’m not name calling or revealing anything, just stating some facts for consideration and thought! They may have done it out of desperation, but it was and is still illegal! I know many employees that worked without breaks, without days off, and without overtime compensation just because they felt like they “had to”. Whether they did it because of pressure fro the boss or because they were grateful for a job, IT’S STILL ILLEGAL! We have Labor Laws in this country so bosses don’t take advantage of employees and yet that is exactly what they did.

Enjoy some relaxation!

One of my favorite things about real estate is that I am an Entrepreneur! I don’t think people understand that. My bills are only paid if I have clients that buy or sell homes with me. I can only feed my family if people use me to represent them in a real estate transaction. I affiliate with my firm, Giving Tree Realty, so they can pay for the technology and office stuff, but I don’t get paid a salary. My success and potential failure is based on the same thing as that local coffee shop you supported so vehemently during the lock down…word of mouth, repeat business, referrals! I believe entrepreneurism is what powers this country. There is a mental (and physical) shift away from “get a job with a big company, work for 40 years, and retire so you can finally travel.” (That sounds so ridiculous!) Is owning your own business harder than working for a company, hell yeah! But I don’t have to argue with my boss about how to use my PTO! I think this shift may be one reason businesses are having a harder time of staffing positions post-pandemic.

So on this Labor Day, value your time off! Our country is built on hard work, but we’ve spent years getting away from slavery and indentured servitude so don’t let your boss or company become a new master. Maybe spend sometime understanding what our labor laws are, like read the poster in the break room. Or shower an entrepreneur with praise (and fee advertisement). Or just plan how to use allll the PTO your company offers!

Stay safe out there!

Family Vacation

The last year and a half has been full of changes and differences. Last year, family vacation was cancelled because of a hurricane. We were stuck at home due to COVID for months and then we were stuck at home due to a hurricane for our vacation. We decided to stay home and stay safe and stay bored. I was so tired of being bored! And it seems so was the rest of the world!

I heard a story the other day about how National Parks were seeing such an influx of travel this summer. So much so, that they were having a hard time managing it with limited staff back at work. The true concern was for the waste and pollution being added to their work load. I don’t think people consider the impact they have on natural spaces. I was taught to “pack in – pack out” and “Leave Little”. Take out everything that you take in to a natural space. Leave as little trash behind as absolutely possible. Pack out your trash. Don’t use single use items, like paper towels, paper plates, and plastic ware. I can promise you my friends and family make constant fun of me for washing dishes at the yearly camping trip! I know that your small three day sum of paper and plastic products may not seem like much, but multiply that by the millions of people that are “road trippin” this summer and I can only imagine what Park Rangers are having to deal with this year.

So I had big plans for this summer! I wanted to travel and vacation and rest! But it didn’t happen the way I planned. We didn’t add to the throngs of people traveling around the country. Our summer has been consumed by summer school, summer jobs, and summer commitments. Now that the summer is coming to a close, and I am being a little reflective, I think it was more of a success than I was willing to give myself credit for. It’s just the the success looked very different this year than it has in previous years. But doesn’t that sum up 2020/21 pretty perfectly!

The hubby and I ended up in Maine on Peaks Island for a college roommates wedding. It was gorgeous! My favorite thing, besides navigating an island town so much like my beloved Ocracoke, was watching the full moon over the ocean. We didn’t do much resting because of the wedding shenanigans, but we spent time together, traveled, made some new friends and explored a new place. I thought it didn’t count as a vacation because we were so busy, but I was wrong. We didn’t rest physically, but we got to take an emotional and psychological break from reality. I didn’t realize it until we were home. After the mental stress involved in the last year and a half, I think being able to let loose a little was very healing for me. I didn’t have to worry about work schedules, school schedules, kids, dinner or animals. I just got to enjoy the place and people around me. The constant worry had really taken a toll on me, but I was so focused on getting through it I hadn’t really noticed. I think that our mental health has suffered most during COVID in my family. I was originally annoyed at not getting to do what I had planned for the summer, but, as always, God’s plan was better than mine!

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Beautiful wedding venue at The Inn at Peaks Island in Maine.

As for the girls, they had their own set of adventures! I have always wanted to give my kids a similar experience to my own growing up. I think I valued it so much that I thought they needed those experiences to be raised right. We always went on family vacations growing up. My whole family would travel for a week or two in an RV across different parts of the country exploring different things. We would fit 7 people in a van and drive through New York City or cross the Canadian border or see the Grand Canyon. So when my father passed away in January of 2020 a huge part of that changed for us, but mostly for my mother. She has been trying to figure out how to do things for herself after 50 years of having a partner. Travel was a big issue. So when my 13 year old daughter agreed to road trip with my mom to New York City, I wasn’t the least bit worried…maybe. But they did amazing! They visited the Statue of Liberty, the 9/11 Memorial, Central Park, and Ellis Island. They navigated the hotel, the subway, and a bike tour. And most of all, they did it together! I am so glad that they have that experience to look back on forever. It is not the same experience I had in NYC with my entire family, but it is theirs and that is better!

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Annie’s adventures in NYC!

We have had beach trips and lake days and day trips and family days. We have managed to squeeze in a surprisingly large amount of things into a crazy busy, super packed summer. I’m beginning to understand that my experiences with my family, while similar to other families and other experiences, are as unique as each one of us are. I always want to explore and travel. I always want to do things with my girls. But I learned this summer that it’s okay to let them do their thing while I get to do mine. It’s another step of letting go of the control I felt that I had to have over everything. Growth and change have created a different path than anyone could have predicted this year, and I really like where it took us. We didn’t control the situation, but we did maneuver the way we responded to it. I’m proud of where we are each individually and as a family unit!

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I live for day trips and short vacations because of all the animals on our farm!

The Seller’s Market

If you are trying to sell your home, NOW is the time to do it! Sellers are at a HUGE advantage these days because there are so many buyers out there looking, and so few sellers actually listing their property. Let’s take a look at what that means for buyers, for sellers, and for the market in general.

June stats in the Charlotte market from Canopy MLS

Buyers may be having it the worst in this market. So we’ll start there. If you are in the exciting position to be searching for a home, you will find very little of the perfect inventory you wish for. I have a TON tricks and tips to finding a home in this market. One trick may be wait it out! I see things loosening up already so the fall looks like more inventory, a bounce back in new construction and less competition to buy. But if you definitely need to move quickly, make sure you do it with cash. Cash is still and will always be king. If you have it, use it…in Due Diligence, in the down payment, in the offer, use it anywhere there is an opportunity to entice people. If you don’t have it, there are ways to turn the equity you have in your current home into cash. Again, I have oh so many tricks!

The sellers plight is a little different. They have to be ready to move quickly. It is not the normal market where you have to be concerned about how clean or neat your house is. When you are ready to put your house on the market, just know that it will not last there, so make sure that you have a plan of how to move. The difficult question is always what to do first, but in this kind of chaos, I definitely suggest you sell first. There are companies out there that offer bridge packages. Sellers are in the position to request lease back options of their buyers. There is always the opportunity to do a short term lease, many of which can be found at airbnb or VRBO.

As a seller, a little strategy and forthought can help the sale move more smoothly. Go ahead and get a pre-inspection so you know what to fix. Using a little strategy when listing the property can help you and your family control the chaos that comes. My personal strategy is as follows: a. prep everything first, b. list the property as coming soon early in the week (Monday or so), c. turn it active on Friday night or Saturday morning, d. if necessary or desired, hold an open house on Saturday and Sunday, e. call for highest and best by 8PM on Sunday, and be under contract by Monday at noon. Most importantly, I cater our strategy to meet the needs of the family. It is not as difficult as those commercials make it sound! I have cash buyers with a two week close too, if that’s what you want!

Don’t try to navigate this market alone…and don’t let your friends do it either!

But what does it mean for the market? Well, there’s the rub, as they say. Sellers think it works well to their advantage that homes are selling at a higher price bringing them more money at closing. But are they? I used to think that a higher sale price meant higher property values for the neighborhood, and that seemed like a good thing! Now, after surviving through this for the last year, I can see two sides to the situation.

I was recently reading Promise Land by President Barack Obama. There is a section of the book that talks about the housing bubble that burst in the early 2000s. I was fascinated by the potential correlation between then and now! It described lending practices that allowed people to get loans at low to no interest rates. We are seeing those same types of loan packages. The difference right now is that borrowers have “good” credit AND some cash up front. Lenders seemed to have “sort of” learned their lesson. We actually have a lot of cases where loans don’t get funded because of the regulations developed by lenders after that market adjustment.

Is It Really Good For The Market?

One of the major problems during that housing bubble explosion, was that homeowners found themselves upside down on the value of their home. They paid a certain amount for the home, then property values tanked due to the market and recession, so they owed way more than the property was worth. We are currently seeing a lot of that. In a recent sale where I was the listing agent, the home sold for $70,000 over the price I listed it at. I do my research for market value! So I knew what the actual value of that home was. But the buyer was comfortable putting way more cash into it just to win the bid! Appraisers are trying to manage the market increase (or over manage in some cases) by using comparable properties that many agents and home buyers don’t find comparable at all! There is some argument that the market will make an upward adjustment in 6 months, but that’s a risk many buyers should struggle to trust.

I LOVE MY JOB! I love helping people achieve whatever their goal in real estate is…make money, buy a new house, get my family more space. But this market is not for the faint of heart! Be warned if you plan to enter into it. And get an amazing agent you trust (like me). AND THEN LISTEN TO THEM! Now more than ever, home buyers need a Buyer’s Agent to guide them through this chaos! Don’t do this alone and don’t let your friends do this alone!

Put Your Kids First

This week I heard one of the best ideas I think I’ve heard in a very long time, and I want to share it with everyone! It’s a totally new way of thinking about planning for your children’s future. And it’s genius! I think you can use it to fund what ever path your children decide to follow.

Are you big “college after high school” people, or “just get a good job” families? I have always said that I just want my girl’s to be happy. The reality in this country is that we need a heavy mix of both. Trade schools are pushing to get students the training they need to get into the workforce as quickly as possible without all of the college debt. But we still need doctors and lawyers. I have always wanted to make sure we had the means to help the girl’s do whatever it is they decide to do, whether it’s traveling in a van teaching surf lessons (totally a possibility), or going to medical school to be a vet. College is an expectation after high school. However, we talk a lot about other options. No matter what kids decide to do after they graduate, the reality is they are going to need help from their parents!

What if that plan revolved around real estate investing?! Just hear me out…

If you have a young child, let’s say 5 and under, consider buying an investment property this year. Interest rates are lower than they will be in a couple of years. If you already own a home, a 2nd home will cost you a 20% down payment and a “good” credit score. You could choose to hold that property as a rental house for another family to raise their children. You could choose a property in a destination location that would make a good Air B and B. The point is that you hold it. Pay a real estate agent/property manager to run it if you must. In 12 years or so when your child is graduating from high school, that property has either made you a yearly profit that you have saved, or you sell it for the appreciated value and use the profit to pay for college, trade school, or just offer as a down payment on their own new life. Though property value increase rates will slow and correct in the next 10 – 12 years, they will very likely not go backwards. We learned our lessons in 2009! Punch some numbers…a $150,000 house at a modest 10% appreciation would yield $15,000. That’s a lot more than I feel like I’ve saved in a 529 account!!

Even if your kids are ready to graduate!

What if your children are older? I still say do the same! In Charlotte alone appreciation rates are going to sky rocket in the next year because of the current sellers market. It is possible to hold the house for 2-5 years and sell for a $20K to $50K profit. Maybe you don’t have enough time to save for their 4 years at college, but you do have the ability to pay for their first year out of pocket. And that amount could easily pay for multiple years at a trade or community school.

You can even capitalize on this concept if your children are graduating this year or next! Why pay for on campus housing when you can invest in real property? If you buy a 3 bedroom house in or around a college town or campus, you can let your college freshmen choose 2 people to room with them who will pay rent! Heck, make your kid should pay rent! When that child is done with school, sell the home and collect the profit. Or don’t and keep it as a collegiate rental for the future. I think in this scenario the options are endless. The biggest point being that instead of paying someone else to make money on real estate, you are!

The big picture is to have a real estate investment property for every child!

One House for Every Child!

Let’s talk about the down sides (even if there aren’t any:)). Managing real estate investments are not always easy. There is an amount of luck and risk to figure into the equation. Consider just the price of rent for whatever property you are thinking. That rental rate needs to cover the mortgage you pay, homeowners insurance, homeowners dues, taxes and some amount for repairs. You can do it either way. Find the going rental rate in that neighborhood, easily accessible with a search through my real estate portal, or figure the rate by adding all of those elements together. If your lender says the mortgage for that property would be $800/month, rent it for $1500 to cover all of the others. There is always the option of hiring a real estate professional to manage the property for you. Property Managers can do as little or as much of the management as you want them too for a small fee that should also be added in to the rent rate.

There are a million ways to work this out! These are the kinds of ideas that I got into real estate for. You do not have to be wealthy to make money! The only way to build wealth is to take a little risk. Upward mobility from lower to middle or middle to higher class can only happen with knowledge. It isn’t always about working harder. It’s about working smarter. I want to help people figure out how to add wealth to their life. This seems like a no brainer to me. I sure wish I had learned this trick when the girls were little! Once our farm house is built, these are the next goals on the list!

Send me a question and let’s get started planning for your kid’s future!!

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The Story of 5 Hairdryers

It’s 2021!!! Normally, my first post of the year would be about planning for the new year…resolutions, word of the year, design down planning, goal setting, and so on. But this year, I’ve been planning for the new year since November! Maybe because it was such a horrible year! I hired a business coach this year and we started planning early. I am so excited for what this year is going to bring me and my family!

My Favorite Goal Planner for 2021 CLICK HERE

But this post is not about planning, it’s about reflecting. One thing that I did differently this year to plan for next year is first reflect on what went right and what went wrong in 2020. Surprisingly, a lot went right. It certainly didn’t turn out the way I expected or wished, but we really did get a lot accomplished as a family and a business. That leads me to the story of the 5 hairdryers.

No one needs this many hairdryers!

One item that always ends up on our to-do list or family goals or inner work is to be better at communication. I have discovered through my crazy life that it is really the centrifuge of everything. Running a family, a marriage or a business is all about how you communicate with people. The ONLY way we get what we want out of any relationship is if we first tell them WHAT WE WANT. (Read that again.) We can tell our children to clean their room, but if we have never told them what “clean” means to us, how can they satisfy our request? If we get joy out of random gifts or surprises, our significant other doesn’t know to do those things if we never tell them that brings us joy. It may be most important in business. Ever take a position that comes without direction? Like there is no job description that tells you exactly what you are expected to do. Then you get in trouble for not doing something that you had no idea you were responsible for doing. It happens in small businesses all the time. Without communicating with someone what you need, want, or expect there is little chance that the other person will get it right.

But there is another side!! Communication is not a one way street. It has to go both directions. If you never LISTEN to what the other person needs, wants, or expects, you will never make them happy. Again, apply this to your children, your significant other, and your business. When hubby tells me he needs time with the boys, I have to respect when he takes that time.

What about the holidays? Do you ask people what they want and then get them something totally different? A lack of communication is what lead us to the story of 5 hairdryers.

I am a planner. The people in my life should know this about me. I have conversations with everyone about what you want for holidays, what we are doing when, and how we are doing it. I actually get a lot of joy out of planning. So for the holidays, I plan very carefully what to get each and every person on my Christmas list. My children are no exception, maybe even more so. They have too many things, in my opinion, so Christmas for me needs to be very deliberate. I saw an idea one time about getting them one item for each category…clothes, books, music, toys, activities. For years, communicating with their father about what he was getting and I was getting made me crazy because it became a competition of whose presents were better and he never stuck to what he said. I gave that up last year, and just focused on what they had here. This year, no matter how hard I tried, there was a breakdown in communication somewhere between my husband and I about what we were getting the girls. I had my list (on paper) and he had his list (in his head). I never really understood why there were two. Maybe earlier communication could have solved that. No where on either of those lists were hairdryers. On Christmas Eve as we are wrapping the last of the presents we realize, he has bought 2 hairdryers and I had bought another. There are only 2 bathrooms in our house. No one needs a personal hairdryer in their room. We only NEED 2 hairdryers. But now, because neither of us communicated the gift of a hairdryer with the other, we have 5. The quasi-minimalist in me cringes at the excess, not to mention the over-spending.

As the conductor says at the end of Polar Express, “lesson learned”! I try to communicate. I feel like I tell people things. I can’t fix how they listen, so maybe I need to fix how I tell them. This idea goes for all the important areas of my life, my hubby, my girls, and my business. Let me digress for a minute about kids. They are not adults. They are kids. We can expect them to know how to behave, or what satisfies us in terms of “good” behavior and “good” decisions. But if you never tell them that drinking underage is unacceptable or that smoking marijuana is not allowed, how are they supposed to know, especially if they see people around them doing those very things. Don’t ASSUME your children know your rules and boundaries just because they came from you. They are individual human beings with their own thoughts, decisions, ideas, and minds. What seems like common sense to our adult brains may not have made it past the hormones of their adolescent one. You do not control those things, though you have the power to manipulate those with the right communication. But refusing to communicate with people, simply because they should already know it, just leaves more room for trouble. So, for 2021, more direct communication, maybe even written, typed, messaged, emailed, or texted. No assuming the ones around me can read my mind or just know what I’m doing and why.

Communication really is the key to almost any situation. It’s a skill that has to be learned and taught. Being open and transparent can be scary. But choosing not to can put a relationship at risk. I choose this year to value my relationship with those around me over protecting my pitiful pride.

Does the Coach need a Coach?

Coaching and Mentoring are a continuum of activities in business.

I made a big-girl business decision this week! And I’m still a little nervous about it. All entrepreneurs, especially sole-proprietors, belabor the business decisions they make because our entire success does depend on it. I can’t blame anyone else but me if I made the wrong one. And I have made some wrong ones.

A year ago, I decided to join forces with a company called Homes for Heroes. It was a cool concept that fit right in with my “why”, to help people. They give cash back to “heroes” when they purchase a home. It’s done through a non-profit so it’s legit. The Real Estate commission does not allow buyers to walk away from a transaction with cash so this company came up with a work around using a donation to a 501c3. I especially liked it because their definition of hero extended to teachers, healthcare workers, and fire, police, EMT and military. But the program as an investment did not work out for me. I did not close one single hero in my first year, and I spent $150 a month to be a “member”. I made the decision to walk away from the program to save the monthly fee. But I did learn something! I truly believe the majority of people do business with friends, people they “Know, Trust, and Love”, before they even consider those types of programs. I decided to put all of my efforts into growing a referral business.

For things to change for you, first you must change.

~ Jim Rohn

The decision I made last week involves paying a little bit of money, actually quite a bit of money. Twice that of the failed, give-back program! But I can do it for half the time if I get into it and don’t see a true benefit. I’m not signing a contract, so that’s great!

I hired myself a coach! I’ve never done anything like that before! I danced my whole life. I had teachers and choreographers, not really coaches. I guess they sort of do the same thing. They want you to improve. They give you pointers on how to do things better. I just picture a coach as a person that yells and pushes, and I don’t respond to stuff like that. I’ve also worked in the management side with coaches who want to hold their agents “accountable” or they can’t be helped. It seems like it is motivated from a different spot than I ever really stand on. I’m not competitive at all. I don’t need to make a million dollars. I want to create a successful business, build a new house on my property, take care of my girls and my animals, but I don’t have to be rolling in dough to do that. Further more, I’m not going to work 80 hours a week. It is not even possible between #farmlife and #momofteenagers.

Furthermore, I am a “mentor” myself! That may be a favorite part of my management job. I really enjoy helping people get deals worked out and see their own success. They should feel cared for and supported in my “girl gang” (even though there is now 1 guy). Is it crazy for me to ask for help while I’m helping?

I have always believed that asking for help is a sign of intelligence, not weakness. I am smart enough to put in words or on paper what I need help with. Also, I am reflective enough to know that I need guidance. I am humble enough to know that I do not hold all of the answers. And I am smart enough to find the right person to help me. I had the option of many people. Even “free” people. I found it very important to find just the right person. I wanted a woman, a mother, and a successful entrepreneur. I needed someone that I could look up to, emulate, learn from. I was looking for someone that had a similar climb to the top as I do. No offense to men, but it is very different being a working mom or a “mom-treprepeur” than it is being a dad.

Don’t “kid” yourself…whether it’s working from home or in an office, it’s really like 3 jobs!

Do I need a coach? Maybe. Do I need guidance? Sure. Do I just need to talk to a person like me or like I want to be? Abso-freaking-lutely. I think we all do! Whether that person is in your family or your company or your church or your neighborhood, without guidance I feel like I’m flapping in the wind like a lost fabric of some greater piece. I search for guidance from many different places. I don’t think people can actually be better unless they spend time working on it.

What to do first…Buy or Sell

This is not a new question. But in a market like this, it is an even more difficult question to answer. As a real estate advisor, I feel the need to address this super-hot topic. If you are planning to make a move, up, down, or just out of town, unless you rent, you will have to make this choice. It is not an easy decision, and it all depends on what your needs truly are. There is no sense in getting frustrated because there are lots of options. Let me give you a few options, while walking you back off your ledge.

Tip #1…DON’T wait for the market to calm down! ACT NOW! Yes, it is crazy out there…like cut-throat, but that is GOOD NEWS for anyone wanting to sell. So your current home is not really the issue at hand. It will sell, no problem! How fast and for how much are where you will need a strategic plan.

“You don’t have to be perfect, and neither does your house!”

Tip #2…This is not the time to look for a DEAL! In a market this hot, people will get what they are asking for, at least that’s the offer that will take the property off the market. Let’s be honest! When you set a price for your home to sell at, that’s the number you want to see on an offer, even if you have to wait for it. So don’t try to make an offer on someone else’s price that is for “what I think your home is worth”. Even if the price is listed too high, they will likely only take offers somewhere in that neighborhood. They may not CLOSE the sell for that amount, but that is a different article!

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  Photo by Mark McCammon on Pexels.com

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  Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

Tip #3…You don’t have to be perfect, and neither does your house! In a “seller’s market”, you don’t have to paint every wall, replace the carpet, and update your appliances. Your house will sell even if you leave it just the way that it is. Need it to sell faster? Do the painting and cleaning. Need it to sell at the top end of the listing range? Put some time and money into curb appeal, cleaning, and small updates. Also, offer a home warranty! It costs around $500, which can be deducted from the proceeds of the sale, and offers reassurance to anyone questioning the listing price that they won’t have to fork out a fortune in 6 months to replace the HVAC. I offer FREE warranties to my listings, as a service to my clients, both on a buy and sell!

New Construction gives you more options.

Tip#4…Consider New Construction! Inventory is super low right now so finding that perfect home may take a while. If it’s going to take you 6 months to find the right place, why not BUILD exactly what you want?!? In my opinion, this is the best solution for our current market delima of ridiculously low inventory. And the options are endless…spec built, custom home, modular home, farmhouse zoning, value built, and many more. I don’t understand why people are so scared of new construction. It is no more stressful than the due diligence time period when you’re buying a 20- or 30-year-old existing home! So what’s the down side?

If forced to answer the question, I tell clients to do what is best for them. If you are a risk taker and like living by the seat of your pants, hello enneagram sevens, list your house today! Even if you accept an offer in the first 24 hours it’s on the market, you are going to have 30 – 45 days to find your own new space, because few mortgage companies can close them faster than that, not to mention we have a 14-day grace period built in to our contract at all times (shhhh!). If you are a planner that only takes calculated risks and never acts on impulse, shop first! Spend a couple of months watching the market, for your neighborhood AND the house you want to buy, find the perfect new place, then put your house on the market in tip-top shape. Neither of those options are wrong! What matters is that you do what is best for you, your mental stability, and your family.

Interested in Investments??

Things to Know

There are many ways to grow your wealth. But none have the kind of stability and return that Real Estate offers. And I’m not saying that just because I’m a real estate agent (I prefer to call myself ADVISOR)! I’m saying it because it’s true and I see it every day. Consider some of the most successful or wealthy people you know. I bet they own some type of property. It may be their own, an investment, or even commercial. Here’s what they know that you do not…

• Passive Income
• Tax Deductions
• Market Stability
• Simple Investment

Before you invest, there is some work to be done. (1) Find a mortgage lender that you are completely comfortable with. Some one that will answer all of your questions and is good at problem solving. Buying an investment property is VERY DIFFERENT than buying your primary residence. (2) Find a tax person! There are tax penalties to pay when you sell an investment property. AND there are tax benefits to be aware of like writing off the maintenance and improvements. Make sure you understand all that before you jump in.

Make Some Decisions

First off, what type of investment are you looking for? In my opinion, there are really 3 different categories that make the most sense for everyday investors…Buy and Hold, Buy and Sell, or Short-term Rental.

Buy and Hold means that you rent the property out. You act as landlord, or you hire a management company to do that for you. The investor has the opportunity to be completely hands on, making all decisions and doing all the work, or the investor can hire out all of those responsibilities like management, maintenance, etc. This is my personal favorite. I want to have a hand in creating affordable housing in areas of Charlotte where that does not exist. If the investment is done well, it is residual income for years to come.

Buy and Sell means that you find a distressed property, make the appropriate fixes and updates, and sell it on the open market for a profit. Again, there is opportunity to do as little or as much on your own as the investor would like. This type of investment can give a large lump sum at the end. I find the most difficult part of this is finding the right property. It takes a lot of digging, looking, and being constantly on the look out for something that will make money.

Short-term rentals are like vacation properties. Did you know that Charlotte is a destination? There are tons of rentals on AirBnB and VRBO for the Charlotte and surrounding areas. But in North Carolina, you have any other options. Mountain or beach rentals can be easily purchased from wherever you live and are equally as easy to maintain. These have an extra benefit of providing your family with a vacation destination. Many owners use the vacant weeks to entertain their own families or even business associates. Some owners even block out weeks from rentals for their personal vacations.

Location, Location, Location

These are the 3 rules of real estate investing…location, location, location! What ever decision you make about the type of real estate that you want to invest in will determine the location you should seek out. But keep a few things in mind…

• Property Taxes – this has to figure into your investment cost
• Goal – if you want to offer affordable houseing find an area in need and be creative…if you want to make tons of money in vacation rental find a popular spot with availability.
• Investigate – what type of things are on the horizon for that area?

Below are THREE (3) of my favorite possible investments:

BUY AND SELL Look for extremely low price, property listed AS IS, or “investment opportunity”.

BUY AND HOLD Look for excellent location and well priced for the area.

Short-term Rental Find something that you would want to visit and others will too!

rental-hotsheet-0801Download

Your Most Important Tool…ADVISOR

FIND AN AGENT!!!! I don’t care if you are looking for property in the Alaskan Bush…FIND AN AGENT!!! Yes you can find properties on Zillow, but that is not what real estate peeps do.

I’ve recently rebranded myself as a Real Estate ADVISOR, because, though I do represent you as your “agent” during the 30 days between offer and closing, I normally ADVISE people on a best course of action for up to 2 years before the contract is even written. And, no, you don’t pay for that service at the time it’s rendered. I get paid in cash when we close on a sale, or in returns when you refer me to the people in your circle. My advice is not “free”, but it is free-flowing.

If you want more info, set an appointment with me and let me ADVISE!

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What’s the market like?

The Charlotte, NC version!

I get this question a lot in my personal and professional life. Clients ask so they can judge if this is a good time to buy or sell. But in Charlotte, NC, there isn’t a bad time. We are one of the most sought after relocation places in the country. Businesses are relocating here everyday bringing hundreds of people at a time. I heard a statistic one day that said 4 people per day move to the Charlotte area. I personally have helped clients purchase homes in relocation, sometimes sight unseen. So understanding that this area is normally really successful in the market, I think it makes for a great barometer for the economy at large.

The Real Estate market and the economy are very closely related. Whether you are interested in buying, selling, or investing, the statistics tell a lot about the future and the present. Here are #3 reasons why:

Units Sold   Between May 1 and June 30, in Mecklenburg County, 2,649 single family homes were sold. In 2019, there were 3,320 single family homes sold.While it is a significant decrease from a pre-COVID era, it did not stop. Transactions were still happening. Sales can be done contact free. 

Median Price   This is the median price for counties surrounding Charlotte for single family homes sold from May through June. Union County seemsto be the most expensive at $399,481 on average. Mecklenburg is only slightly behind at $389,403. What I am most impressed at is Lincoln county. Even though only 236 units sold from the previous graph, the average price was $341,113. If I haven’t explained to you the West Side Story…you should call me! Especially if you’re investing!

Lending  Here’s the bad news. It’s all about the availability of funds. No matter what market you are looking at as a barometer of the general economy, if there are no funds available to purchase, the market does not grow. Stimulus checks were not big enough to buy a home and lenders are pretty strict after the housing bubble burst. Soooo, 70% of loans made on all those houses bought during May and June were conventional loans. What does that mean? Your credit score has to be 680+, you have to already have 20% of the purchase price in cash, AND you have to have 2 years of steady, full time employment. Those are tough requirements to meet in this COVID version of life! 

Why is this information really important? Other than helping you understand what to expect from the market if you want to buy or sell, it is an indicator of what the general economy looks like. My concern is not the motivation of buyers and sellers, but the motivation of banks to lend money. They are not making exceptions to the rules for people who have had an interruption in their job history. In other words, if you were terminated for no other reason than COVID, through no fault of your own, because the entire country shut down, you could have to start over on the 2 year clock of consistency. If you went back to work quickly and are currently at a steady 40 hours a week, they may let it slide. But if you are still out of work or your work hours or pay decreased, you are not eligible to purchase right now. That is making it very difficult to get people into homes. At this point, I don’t think we need more stimulus to add to the 4.???Trillion Dollars of debt. We need to update and revise regulations!!

LOSS

I think it is fair to say that at this time in our lives, our history, our world, we have all experienced some form of loss. And that is a pretty powerful binding agent. When I feel like there are people I cannot understand or statements that I just don’t agree with, it makes it a little easier to empathize when I remember they all come from the same pit of loss, and empathy creates a bond, whether we want to bond to something or someone or not.

There is obvious loss of life right now, whether you look at senseless murders or global pandemics. I lost my father to a stroke in January. Of course, that has nothing to do with either of these. But it sure has a lot to do with my world every day. My husband lost his best friend recently. Again, nothing to do with the issues plaguing the world right now. But I think it has been more difficult to process our losses while trying at the same time to process so many other losses. It is as if our emotional cup is full. We have to deal with too much loss right not to really understand, process, and work through any of it completely. Father’s Day looms, and neither of these people should miss it, but here we are without them and no way to put into words or actions the loss.

When I loose people, I hang on to something that reminds me of them. Over the years, the things get moved or destroyed or devalued. And sometimes the loss of the item is almost as hard as the loss of the person. When my grandma was in her Assisted Living Center, where I visited twice a week to have dinner with her, and where I sat by her bed as her body slowly shut down, she had this ridiculous frog tape dispenser. I don’t remember it being at her house before the Center, but I remember it there. When she was gone I carried that stupid tape dispenser with me everywhere, to every classroom I taught in, every home I lived in, every desk I sat at. It was a way for her to be with me in all those times of my life that she was missing. And today it broke. And I am back in the loss, crying like a baby over the broken, ugly tape dispenser, but really over the loss of people whom I dearly miss.

There are more, equally as hurtful forms of loss. The loss of a job doesn’t just mean the loss of an income. It means the loss of an identity, an activity, a community. Being employed somewhere gives you a sense of purpose. The people become a community that only you know. The work you do creates an identity in yourself. One of the most commonly asked questions when meeting someone new, “so what do you do?” The loss of a dream or a plan can be painful. By now our ideas of 2020 have probably been turned on their head! Whatever you were likely hoping this new year, and new decade would bring you has probably been completely destroyed. That can be a crushing blow when you’ve built your hopes up so much for a certain thing.

We are a delicate people with a loss of identity, a loss of income, and maybe even a loss of human life. Tread lightly in the months ahead. Everyone deals with loss differently. Some people choose to be constructive and learn from that feeling of emptiness. While others face it in a negative and destructive manner. No matter which road you go down, you will experience (1) emotional reactions and (2) identify coping mechanisms. Be they negative or positive, I think it is important to understand where it is coming from. The cause is your loss, whatever form it has taken in the last few months. We can move forward, but not without facing and dealing with the loss. And, for the record, we may never heal. This is trauma, and it creates stress. Be graceful with each other and with yourself! If I have to be nice to the kitten that broke my grandma’s ugly frog, you have to be graceful with the people who simply don’t understand how their actions and words are hurting you today. The two are equally ignorant. They may even have their own damage to deal with.