Minnesota Homes Today Local & National News

Confidence Is the Key to Success for Young Homebuyers

by Leave a Comment

Confidence Is the Key to Success for Young Homebuyers | MyKCM

Buying your first home can seem overwhelming. Thankfully, there’s a lot of great information out there to help you feel more confident as you learn about the process. For those in younger generations who aspire to buy, here are three things to consider sooner rather than later in your journey:

1. Understand What it Takes to Purchase a Home

Overall, Millennials make up the largest group of homebuyers in today’s real estate market, and Gen Z is not too far behind. A recent study shared by Freddie Mac shows, however, that Generation Z isn’t as confident in the homebuying process as Millennials. The best thing potential young buyers can do is understand what it takes to buy a home. Learn as much as you can about the mortgage process, down payment options, and the overall steps to take along the way. 

2. Realize Your Opportunity to Build Wealth 

Homeownership allows you the chance to put a small portion of the home’s value down when you buy, and then watch your appreciation grow on the full value of the home – not just on the down payment. It’s one of the best investments you can make, and a form of ‘forced savings’ working in your favor over time. The added bonus? You get to live there, too.

3. Find Someone You Trust to Help You Through the Process 

Having someone you trust to guide you through this process is invaluable. Finding a local real estate expert to help you navigate through the transaction and feel more confident as you make important decisions could be the best choice you make.

For Millennials and Gen Z’ers thinking about buying, today’s historically low interest rates combined with the outlook for future home appreciation is a big win. This means whatever you buy today, you’ll be bragging about 10 years from now. You can feel confident about that!

Bottom Line

If you’re ready, buying your first home sooner rather than later is one of the best decisions you can make. But there are many things to consider before taking that step, so let’s work together to help you confidently navigate the full journey.

How To Finally Become A Real Estate Investor This Year

by

How To Finally Become A Real Estate Investor This YearInvesting in real estate remains one of the best ways to accumulate wealth in America. There are six ways to get started in real estate investing. One way does not require any investment capital, just an investment of your time. Ways to get started include investing in a REIT, buying an incoming-producing property, using a buy-and-hold strategy, flipping houses, crowdfunding, and wholesale deals.

Investing In A REIT

A real estate investment trust (REIT) is an investment instrument that offers a proportional ownership interest in a real estate portfolio that follows a particular investment strategy. A private REIT has a minimum investment that could be $1,000 to $25,000. A publicly-traded REIT sells in shares, just like stocks on the stock exchange. The investment minimum is just one share and some REITs have share prices under $100.

Income-Producing Property

Buy a home and rent it out. For this strategy to work, you do have to deal with the tenant headaches, unless you can afford to outsource the landlord’s work to a property management company.

Buy-And-Hold Strategy

Buy raw land for cheap on the outskirts of a growing town and wait the time necessary for the town to overtake your land for the opportunity to subdivide and develop it for a high price.

Flipping Houses

For those who like doing contracting work, or who partner up with a contractor, there may be profit in buying some fixer-upper homes to renovate and sell for more than the acquisition price plus the renovation costs.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a way to participate as a small investor in real estate deals and also to fund your own deals.

Wholesale Deals

Wholesale deals can be accomplished with no money down. You work for other investors and secure properties at lower than market prices by controlling them with an offer that is accepted and then assigning the deal to the investors for a fee.

Summary

If you have been thinking about becoming a real estate investor, now is the time to do something about it. Even if you start with only $100 by buying shares in a REIT, at least you got started. Once you get your real estate investment strategy going, you will find it to be a very rewarding experience, if you are careful and make wise decisions.

Be sure to associate with an expert REALTOR® in your marketplace area to get sound advice and information.

If you are in the market for an investment property or interested in refinancing your current home, be sure to consult with your trusted real estate agent and home mortgage professional to discuss financing options.

The Long-Term Toll Of College Costs

by

The Long-Term Toll Of College CostsTaking out enormous student loans to get a college degree may be a terrible idea for some. The burden of paying off this debt can make it far more challenging to do other important things like buying a home.

Here are some common problems that come from taking out large student loans:

  • Not Worth It: The college degree may not help you land a high-paying job. Even high-paying jobs like being a dentist have extremely high educational costs as well. Aspiring dentists borrow, on average, over $500,000 to go to dental school and spend multiple decades paying it back.
  • Tuition Hyper-Inflation: Colleges and universities saw the easy money from student loans as a great reason to increase tuition. In many institutions, tuition increases, over the past 42 years, went out of control, especially for trade schools and private universities. College costs rose by 1,400% since 1978. That is five times more than the inflation rate over the same period.
  • Over–Borrowing: The easy ability that students have in many cases to over-borrow for living expenses on top of college costs means that they take bigger loans than they need and wastefully spend the money.

In the olden days, they had a phrase for a person who sold themselves into a kind of work-slavery. They called these people “indentured servants.” By taking out student loan debt that may take decades to pay back, this is a form of indentured servitude, especially because it is difficult, if not impossible to get out of paying the student loans back. Even bankruptcy does not discharge student loan debt.

If your student loan goes into default, there is the possibility of a wage garnishment, which means up to 25% of your take-home pay will be deducted from your checks and used to pay off the student loan debt. This is like a modern version of being an indentured servant.

But You Need A College Degree To Succeed, Right?

For many, earning a college degree that teaches skills and knowledge, which help get a high-paying job, is a reasonable idea. However, not all degrees are equal in their influence over getting a job. Many degree certificates are not worth the paper they are printed on. Moreover, some do better than those who have degrees.

Conclusion

What do Bill Gates, Coco Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Rachel Ray, Mark Zuckerberg, Sean “Diddy” Combs, James Cameron, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Richard Branson, Simon Cowell, Larry Ellison, Ted Turner, and Wolfgang Puck all have in common? They all do NOT have a college degree and still became immensely successful. Many are billionaires, who simply started their businesses and did not have time to finish college, so they dropped out.

Before you saddle yourself with student debt for a huge portion of the rest of your life, think carefully about the ramifications. Then, if you must borrow, borrow as little as possible and make sure you get a degree that helps get a high-paying job.

If you are in the market for a new home or interested in refinancing your current property, be sure to consult with your trusted home mortgage professional.

Categories