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Save Money By Renting Instead Of Buying A Home

In the classic and ongoing argument of benefits for renting versus owning, advocates for home ownership always say that when you own a home, you’re paying yourself every month and building equity. What they neglect to take into consideration is that with the money you save by renting, you could be paying yourself a whole lot more.

Keep reading for a full breakdown of an example family and how, if they rented instead of owned, they could actually wind up significantly better off financially in just ten years.

Let’s Consider an Example

The Smith family buys a home for $200,000 in 1998, putting $20,000 down. Ten years later, thanks to a boom in the market, their home is now worth $350,000. That means their home appreciated at a fairly standard rate of about 5% per year.

While the Smiths got a few tax breaks thanks to their home ownership, they also had to pay about $2000 a year in property taxes, $2000 a year for insurance, and about $200 a month or $2400 a year in maintenance, repairs and house upkeep. In addition, their utility bills cost them roughly $100 a month or $1200 a year and, of course, interest on their mortgage.

With a 7%, 30-year mortgage, an assumed inflation rate of 3.5%, and their appreciation rate all taken into consideration, the Smiths paid approximately $107,000 to live in their home for 10 years.

Use of a Rental Calculator

Now, a basic rental calculator will tell you that had the Smiths rented a comparable home for $1200 a month, plus about $2000 a year for utilities and insurance, they would have paid approximately $157,000 to live in their home for 10 years.

What rental calculators don’t tell you is what would have happened had the Smiths invested their $20,000 down-payment in a modest mutual fund or GIC (Guaranteed Investment Certificate) and put their extra $800 to $1000 every month into other low-risk investments. Well, let’s find out.

Comparing Against Other Investments

Even if they had put their money in a modest high-interest savings account or GIC at just 4% and contributed just $800 a month, saving the rest for fun and entertainment, they would have a nest egg worth almost $157,000 after ten years.

Subtract that modest investment income from the Smith’s rental living costs for the last ten years ($157,000) and you’ll quickly see the Smiths actually broke even. Had they diversified their investment portfolio or made more aggressive investments, they could have even made money.

Remember, while buying a new home may be appealing. You have to do the math, especially if you’re considering purchasing in a market that’s depreciating or not appreciating at a healthy rate. Though homes historically appreciate at a fairly steady rate, this is not an inevitability. In a down housing market, homeowners and home investors can actually lose.

Certainly owning a home has many of its own great advantages, not the least of which include relative freedom to do what you want with it, investment potential if you’ve bought prudently, and greater control over the home’s longer-term costs. But if your primary concern is with the overall financial value, don’t discount renting a house as a viable option.

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Eight Steps To Getting A Home Loan And Buying A House

Step 1 - Know How Much You Can Afford

Before you start looking for a house, you need to know how much you can afford in terms of monthly home loan payments, property taxes, maintenance and your general living costs.

Ginne Mae, a government housing initiative, offers a free calculator to help you figure out how much house you and your family can actually afford. It’s available online at - http://www.ginniemae.gov/2_prequal/intro_questions.asp?Section=YPTH.

Step 2 - Know Your Rights

Whether you’re a low-income home buyer or a wealthy real estate magnate, you have to know your rights. The HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) offers a very informative series of reports dedicated to protecting consumers and prospective home buyers from predatory lending practices. You can read them here: http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/pred/predlend.cfm.

Other resources to look into include the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) and the Fair Housing Act.

Remember, you’re the customer and you deserve to be treated with respect. As a borrower, you have the right to shop for financing, request a written Good Faith Estimate of your total costs, ask your mortgage broker exactly what they can do for you, ask any questions you need to clearly understand the process and associated expenses, understand your fee structure and the right to be evaluated for a loan on criteria that’s free from discrimination.

Step 3 - Find a Loan

When looking for home financing, you want to find the best balance among low-rate financing, a loan that fits your lifestyle and plan, and a lender that’s going to provide ongoing, quality customer support. Don’t be stingy on the time investment at this stage, as finding the right lender will pay off for decades!

Step 4 - Find a House

Using a real estate agent and armed with your pre-qualification, you’ll begin your search for a home. Based on what you can afford and your wish list of options and amenities you want in a home, you should be able to locate what you’re looking for. Take the time to solicit recommendations from people you know and respect before selecting an agent.

Step 5 - Make an Offer

An offer is a tricky minefield of negotiations and real estate law. But, with guidance from your trusted real estate agent, you’ll get through it. If you are uncomfortable with the price of a home, feel free to counter-offer what you believe it is truly worth in the current real estate market and that neighborhood.

Step 6 - Have the Home Inspected

Every offer should be contingent on a full home inspection. Hire a quality and experienced inspector who can give you a complete evaluation of the home and let you know if any major renovations or repairs are going to be needed. If the inspector identifies expensive needs, that will either afford you room for negotiation on the price or an opportunity to move on to another home.

Step 7 - Get Insurance

Lenders are going to require you to have insurance on the property, at least until they no longer own a large chunk of it.

Step 8 - Close the Deal

Last, but not least, is signing and closing the deal. Once you’ve gotten to this point, you’ve secured your financing, the offer has been accepted and you’re finally signing the deed to your new home. Shortly thereafter, you will be moving in!

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Real Estate Investment For Your Retirement

Real estate investment can be a fantastic way to build equity, gain capital and increase your net worth as you prepare for retirement. To learn more about the different ways real estate investment can help you in your retirement and create income streams, keep reading.

Equity

Acquiring real estate property over your lifetime can be a great way to build equity. With patience, almost all real estate will appreciate in value over the course of many years, even in a sluggish or down market.

You can then borrow against equity in the property or sell the real estate for cash and use the proceeds for investment opportunities or more liquid income. Putting some of those capital gains into a retirement savings fund could even save on your capital gains taxes while still protecting your nest egg.

Rental Income Streams

A real estate investment property doesn’t have to sit empty. You can earn income on that property through tenants and rent. By renting out a property with a mortgage on it, you can use the rental income to pay most or even all your monthly mortgage, cover maintenance fees and even see a small monthly profit. In the meantime, you’ll be accumulating equity on the home.

Once the property is paid off, that rental income becomes pure profit after maintenance costs while being a landlord can offer you tax breaks on everything from property expenditures to fees for property management companies.

If you’re older or simply don’t have the time to screen tenants, shovel snow and ice off walkways or maintain a property, hiring a property management company can take care of that need. Certainly doing so will cost you money, but they can take care of all the duties and obligations associated with being a landlord.

Flipping Properties

While purchasing low-cost housing, improving it and later reselling it for a profit involves a lot of sweat and hard work, it can be a great low stress “job” for the retiree. Before you invest in real estate flipping, invest your time in location research, planning and finding a great real estate agent. This is one area where the virtue of patience can pay off handsomely.

Reverse Mortgages

A reverse mortgage can turn your property equity into liquid cash while you retain ownership on the property. Typically, no payments are required on the home equity loan until you are either no longer resident on the property or you sell it.

However, interest will begin to accumulate on the property as soon as the reverse mortgage process begins. This means you won’t have to make payments, but your loan will be accruing interest. The loan is then paid from the proceeds of your estate or, again, once you move or sell the property. If you pass away before the loan is paid, the inheritors of you home would need to do so.

By turning your property equity into cash, you can create an income for yourself during your retirement years. But remember that you will be simultaneously depleting your net worth and the overall value of your estate. So this is a tradeoff that merits due consideration before jumping in.

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Myth vs. Fact Helping Homeowners – Another Perspective

The looming mortgage crisis has affected almost everyone in all facets of life. When the homes stop selling the builders stop building, the carpenters stop nailing, the painters stop painting, paint stores stop selling and Home Depot stock hits record lows. Vertical damage is universal in almost all aspects of retail, services and durable goods. Let’s face it, America is a nation that is fueled by land development and salesmanship. One look at all of the runways across the world and you can see that we have the greatest airplane sales people in the world. Unfortunately, ingenuity, invention and production have taken a back seat to Americans selling products owned or built by other countries. For Goodness sake, GM is second in sales to Toyota now, who’d a thunk it?

The reason for this article is not to bemoan today’s economic footprint but to help people understand the most common myths that you hear about the housing and mortgage debacle. What you hear from our completely un-biased and non-partisan media auspiciously omits some of the important facts that might help the average American better understand exactly what we are up against.

Burj Dubai - Scaling Record Global Heights

Already acknowledged as the world’s tallest tower, Burj Dubai achieved another global first on May 12th 2008 when it was officially recognized as the tallest building and the tallest man-man structure in the world. Glass panels that were installed at a dizzy height of 512 meters took the building up to 636 meters surpassing the current record holder, the Petronas Towers of Malaysia by 181 meters.

Scaling New Heights In Luxury

The center piece of Downtown Dubai and one of Dubai’s iconic landmarks, Burj Dubai, is surrounded by plush open green spaces and spacious pedestrian boulevards in addition to a combination of residential, commercial, leisure, hotel and entertainment outlets including Dubai Mall, the world’s largest shopping mall. A large man-made lake wraps around the tower offering every facade of the tower with dramatic but different day and night-time views.

The tower itself is made up of swanky residential apartments, the uber-luxurious Armani Hotel, high-tech office space, four magnificent pools, an exclusive residents’ lounge and an elite cigar club as well as state-of-the-art fitness facilities, serviced residences and an observatory.

Salient Architectural Features

- The footprint of the building, a tri-lobed shape is based on an abstract desert flower indigenous to the region

- At certain angles the silhouette of the building proffers a subtle hint to the onion domes characteristic of Islamic architecture

- The foundation, which was constructed using over 110,000 tons of concrete, consists of a concrete and steel podium with 192 piles descending down to a depth of over 50 meters

- Innovatively designed to withstand Dubai’s soaring summer temperatures, the exterior facade consists of 22,000 cladding panels made of reflective glazing with stainless steel tubular vertical fins and aluminum and textured stainless steel spandrel panels

- The building uses futuristic double-decker elevators

- The highest residential floor occupies the 109th floor and the observation deck is on the 124th level with a private club above that

- Remarkably similar to the bundled tube concept of the Sears Tower, Burj Dubai is technically not a tube structure at all. Despite its striking resemblance, it is structurally entirely different from the Sears Tower

The Tower Of Dubai - A Global Icon

Literally translated as the ‘Tower of Dubai’, Burj Dubai was initially conceived as a 90-storey structure. An ambitious aspiration to construct a global icon gave rise to this towering magnum opus in steel, concrete and glass, which has made the world sit up and acknowledge the Dubai property development market as a global leader to contend with.

According to Mohamed Ali Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar Properties, the Tower of Dubai is more than just an architectural and engineering masterpiece; it is truly a human achievement that would be impossible to rival or even equal. As a case in point, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat plans on holding its 8th World Congress in Dubai and is using Burj Dubai as an archetype to demonstrate the extent to which modern-day structures are pushing the boundaries of technology and engineering.

Sandcastles offers for sale a wide range of Property for sale Dubai including many property developments such as The Burj Dubai and Dubai Waterfront

Jaime Hayon Making Furniture Design

Spaniard Jamie Hayon is a very bold and far-stretched designer that knows no bounds, and asks no questions, as his style is neither here nor there. He is an exemplar of designers for this generation, and well poised on his way to becoming like the greats of history for the future. Jamie has a knack for designing anything under the sun, and has his hands in everything including lighting, and one of his most standout pieces is the Josephine Queen Chandelier. It is a fitting name, since the Chandelier is known for its opulence and beauty, and so to with this modern take on the classic design, Hayon preserved and offered a substantial amount of extravagance and splendor.

The Josephine Queen Chandelier’s is based on a redefined porcelain lamp that was initially designed for Metalarte, who is also the sole manufacturer of the chandelier as well. The general styling of the chandelier is most unique, as it is a bold contemporary design that will transcend the years and it will always be the centerpiece of any d

What Is Furniture Design?

What is furniture design? Answers to this can be multiple. Jeannette Altherr is one of the answers for beautiful furniture designs?

Jeannette Altherr was born in Heidelberg, Germany in 1965 and she has become a very famous German designer and stylist, and is now one third of the brilliant designing trio Lievore Altherr Molina studio. Jeannette studied at the Industrial Design School in Darmstdt, and then she later moved to Barcelona to further her studies at the Escuela Massana in design, there she was influenced heavily by the mixture of old tastes with the new of the rich Spanish design. Jeannette quickly made Barcelona her permanent place of residence, as she had begun working for several different design magazines, where she did a lot of styling and design, as well as working for “El Pa

Alberto Lievore Delivers A Cool Furniture Design

Alberto Lievore is a well-known architect and designer, and was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1948. He was born into a family of Italian immigrants, and even as a child, he had grown into his interests and sensitivity for his simple environment, his family and all his simple possessions. He had begun inventing various objects and creating toys for himself, but as the years progressed he pursued a scientific technical education in chemistry and went into work for an oil company. He later completed his military service and sought to further his love for design and began architecture at the Buenos Aires Faculty of Architecture.

While he went to school, he worked at a cabinetmaker’s workshop and as a window dresser, but it was at the workshop that he did design some lacquered furniture for a bank, and it was there that he first met Jorge Pensi. At this time he had acquired a lot more wisdom about his craft and was confident enough to establish his own studio, Hip

Trinidad Chair By Nanna Ditzel

Nanna Ditzel knows how to make furniture design. From the start of her career in the post war years, she has continuously been working with new materials and new techniques. Various materials such as fibre glass, wickerwork and foam rubber are all included in here furniture designs.

The Trinidad chair is one of Nanna Ditzel’s greatest successes. The chair was designed in 1993. It has long since achieved the status of a modern classic furniture design. The distinctive chair takes its name from Trinidad, whose traditional fretwork techniques inspired Nanna Ditzel.

Nanna Ditzel was a seemingly inexhaustible source of creativity and innovation that spanned a long life and career. The Danish queen of design had a very practical and operative method towards her design, as well as combining that with many streams of influence and the result is a very eclectic range of creations. One of those most popular and influential piece is the Trinidad Chair, inspired by the country of Trinidad in the Caribbean. Created in 1993 and was inspired by the island-like feel and the tradition fretwork techniques done there, she infused it with the modern and made it completely her own, as the very distinct chair reflects the cool, carefree nature of Trinidad. It has become one her most successful pieces and widely known, and is still in production today.

It has been tagged as a true “modern classic”, as the chair has a natural functionality about it as well complimenting any d

How To Get Started In Real Estate Today

There is no denying that a career in real estate is rewarding, fast paced and exciting. The sad thing is that a lot of potential real estate agents are having doubts due to all of the talk about the economy driving down the housing market, but let me say that you should not let that get in the way of your dreams. Don’t tell anyone but the housing market and real estate industry in general is still alive and thriving just as much as ever. The dropping property prices are bringing in the smart buyers looking to save a bundle of money on their new home or sound investment and you can be the agent waiting to take that commission.

In fact, the decline in new agents entering the field due to concerns of market stability is actually benefiting those of us willing to jump in head first, by lowering our sheer number of competitors. With less agents taking the first steps to success you will be able to make huge strides in securing new listings and making sales on current ones. Though your marketing efforts may need to be adjusted to accommodate a smaller budget during these tough times.

Marketing Your Real Estate Business on a Budget

Don’t let a small budget kill your real estate career. Instead, take advantage of this opportunity to find more creative and cost effective methods of advertising. Avoid the big expenses like television, print and radio campaigns to get your name out there. Move your efforts to the Internet for attracting new clients and other creative ways. Below is a list of great, low cost advertising ideas to get you started:

Start your own real estate blog or website

Advertise on other real estate agents websites. The cost is significantly less than other advertising campaigns

Take advantage of social networking and user generated content sites for free marketing

Connect with potential clients on real estate forums and message boards

Market yourself to the local area via classified sites like Craigslist

Place your current listings on eBay

Those are only a few of the ideas that you can begin implementing today. Imagine how many more opportunities are out there if you just put your mind to it, think creative. Sit down with a pen and paper and write out all of the places both online and off, that you would be able to find new clients, where would they be or what would they be doing and then make it a point to be at those places. You would be reeling new clients in like they were going out of style and laughing all the way to the bank.

Out of Pocket Expenses You Should Expect

In all honesty, getting started in the real estate business can be expensive, but it really depends on the state you are in. Every state has different costs requirements for schooling and licensing. Realtors spend anywhere from five hundred to five thousand dollars just on licensing and furthering their education, but think of it as an investment in your future. You can recoup your costs and turn a profit from your first sale alone, that’s why this is such a lucrative business.

To find out how much getting started will cost you, visit your States Real Estate Commission Board website and see what they charge for licensing. Make sure to read their requirements very thoroughly to determine what type of schooling you will need or if there any other things you will need to pay for before you can become licensed.

Once you have all of that information, create an outline of all costs and be sure that it fits within your budget. The last thing you want is to overspend and cause problems for yourself or family. Most people entering the real estate business plan to have enough money to survive for between four and six months without a paycheck. This will usually allow plenty of time to get out there and make a sale.

Jessica’s website, http://lake-side-realtors.com provides prospective Realtors with the information they need to get their real estate license and begin their path in the rewarding real estate industry.

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