Real Estate Investing

Once the sun rises on the day after Christmas, many households awaken with the debate in their mind: take the tree down now or wait a few more days?  Of course it’s an individual decision - I know people who dismantle their tree immediately and others (me) who wait several days.  I don’t know why I wait except I just adore the season and want to milk it for every twinkling light that I can.

However, if you’re selling your house my advice is to take down the tree immediately and get the house back in parade condition. We are nearly into 2009 (I’m quite anxious to say goodbye to the market of ‘08) and I believe the niner will be the year that the real estate market will turn back around. It may make a slow climb back, but climb it will.  And I believe the climb is beginning with people making good buys on foreclosed homes.

If you intend to invest in a foreclosure, do so with your eyes wide open.  CNN Money provides four tips on buying a foreclosed property including making sure a home inspection is done in advance.  Most foreclosures are “as is” which may not be an issue, but it could well turn into a nightmare down the road.

My advice is to also be very careful about where you buy.  Like you would when you buy your own home, you want to check with the local police department to see how often and what types of crime calls they answer in that neighborhood.  It wouldn’t hurt to investigate if and how many calls were made to the actual house you’re considering buying.  Make sure there are no squatters cooking meth or no animals left to die whose insides have soaked into the subfloor.

Meanwhile shelter always has been and always will be a basic necessity and in that, people will grow tired of paying rent eventually.  Giving your money to someone else and dealing with neighbors whose music is so loud your fish tank bubbles is a convincing rationale to drive people to find their own dirt, their roof, their own walls.

And why not in 2009?  Interest rates are crazy delish, home prices are quite reasonable, and there are now numerous safeguards in place to protect buyers from predatory lenders.  We’ve survived the holidays, we’ve survived 2008.  Time to move along.

In keeping with the tradition of sharing real estate news, I read this morning that the prices of homes have plunged just about as sharply as actual home sales.  According to MSNBC,

Sales of existing homes fell 8.6 percent, far more than expected, to an annual rate of 4.49 million in November, from a downwardly revised pace of 4.91 million in October. The median sales price fell 13.2 percent — the largest amount on record — to $181,300, from $208,000 a year ago.

However, since this IS the holiday season, I won’t leave you with just bad news.  Instead a couple of recipes to enjoy during Christmas.  This first one can be altered to meet your own religious beliefs (aka no bacon, ham, or add turkey sausage).

English Egg & Cheese Muffin

Toast the English muffin bread.  While toasting,

• Beat one egg in a small cup, along with a splash of milk (to make the egg fluffy) (appx. 1 TBSP).
• Lightly coat bottom and sides of regular cereal bowl with butter-flavored cooking spray & pour in egg.
• Put bowl in microwave and cook for 45 seconds.
• Add a slice of cheese or pre-cooked bacon, ham, or sausage (optional) and cook for 10 to 15 seconds more.

When done, load all onto English muffin and voila! a breakfast sandwich.

Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix

I’m giving you this gift in a jar recipe from memory, but it should still be yummy.

8 Cups of dry powdered milk
2 Cups of Nesquick chocolate milk mix
1/2 Cup of Coffee Creamer
4 heaping TBSPs of powdered sugar

Mix it all up (should make about 5-6 small jars) and scoop into clean jar.  Put on flat lid, then overlay a round cut-out Christmas fabric (find them in the scrap section of any fabric store).  Twist on the jar cap over the fabric.  VOILA!  Homemade hot chocolate mix…. directions:  Pour boiling water over 1/3 to 1/2 cup of mix in cup.  Stir well and enjoy. 

The coolest thing I learned today is that there is a National Christmas Tree Association.  I heard long ago that there’s an association for just about everything - and there are many goofy ones - but one for Christmas trees?  Awesome!

This association that concentrates on one of the cornerstone decorations of Christmas offers great tips on picking out a tree, recycling trees, types of trees, the history of trees, fun stuff with trees … just about everything you’d want and need related to a tree.  But most importantly, it also provides some safety tips related to Christmas trees.  One of the most important tips is to use care in NOT overloading your outlets,

Overloaded electric outlets and faulty wires are the most common causes of holiday fires in residences - these types of fires can be just as dangerous with an artificial tree.

When we had children, my husband and I went from live trees to artificial.  In fact this year we even graduated to a pre-lit tree (we want our marriage intact this time next year, especially after last year’s Christmas tree light fiasco).  We made the change thinking that artificial trees were MORE SAFE.  We do turn our tree off every night and typically don’t leave the lights on for extended periods of time if we’re not in the room with it.  But it appears that tree fires are fairly rare - when there are fires at Christmas they are typically started by something else.

Too late for me to change back to a live tree, though.  With luck on my side, I’ll keep my pre-lit, artificial tree for many  years to come.

For your Christmas pleasure, here’s a puzzle from the National Christmas Tree Association.