Home Too Big?

Houses are getting bigger overall, but that doesn’t mean a larger house is right for you.

“Fit is super important, and people get complacent and they don’t think about if their home is still fitting them,” says Marni Jameson Carey, a home and lifestyle expert, author of “Downsizing the Family Home: What to Save, What to Let Go,” and president of Power to the Patients, a nonprofit organization.

Here are four signs your home may be bigger than you need or can handle.

  • There are rooms you haven’t spent time in for weeks.
  • You haven’t furnished the whole house.
  • The property taxes are too much for you.
  • Most of the stuff belongs to people who’ve moved away.

And here are four things you can do about it:

  • Reach out to a professional.
  • Stay in a short-term rental for a while.
  • Consider all your needs.
  • Don’t just downsize your home.

There Are Rooms You Haven’t Spent Time in for Weeks

A four-bedroom McMansion may have once been perfect for a house full of teenagers and hosting extended family for the holidays, but now all but your own bedroom is a guest room and you no longer host Thanksgiving for the family.

“You’re overheating spaces that don’t need to be heated at all because you’re not using them,” says Eric Stewart, CEO and associate broker of the Eric Stewart Group of Long & Foster Real Estate in the District of Columbia metro area. “I think it’s the slow realization that the house owns you more than you own the house.”

You Haven’t Furnished the Whole House

Whether you don’t need a room or can’t afford to put furniture in it yet, the fact that your furniture choices can’t match the house you bought may be a sign it’s not the right real estate fit.

“Plastic chairs on a patio on an $800,000 house, and you go, ‘What happened here?’” Carey says.

If you’ve lived in the house more than a few months and you’ve left entire rooms bare, ask if you’re ever going to take full advantage of the total square footage you own. If you see it as unlikely, consider “right-sizing” your property to fit with your lifestyle as well as your wallet.

The Property Taxes Are Too Much for You

You can deduct your state and local property taxes up to $10,000 from your itemized federal tax filing, but for many homeowners that still means they’ve got a few thousand dollars to pay without annual relief.

If the limit on property deductions isn’t enough and means you’re financially strapped, you should rethink the home you own. Consider whether the location outweighs your ability to pay other expenses, and look at alternative cities or neighborhoods that might be able to provide the life you desire without the excessive costs currently tied to it.

Most of the Stuff Belongs to People Who’ve Moved Away

A classic empty nester problem is having all your kids’ belongings spanning from birth to college – and even beyond – with no real use for any of it. Trying to get your adult children to decide between keeping their macaroni art from first grade at their own house and letting you toss it can be tough for both sides, but keep in mind that your home shouldn’t be used as a storage unit.

Carey says, when given a certain amount of space, most people will naturally fill it up with belongings. In the case of empty nesters, that space is often filled with memorabilia that ultimately does not provide enough sentimental value to anyone to be kept. Put your foot down and have your kids come by to clean up and take what they would like to keep.

Even if you’d like to stay in your home in the long run, it’s important to regain control of the property when others stop living there. The worst-case scenario is realizing you need a smaller house or need to move to where you can get more care but feel overwhelmed by the task of clearing out the house. “Don’t be there as a default – be there by choice,” Carey says.

https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/is-your-house-too-big-for-you

Best Places to Retire

After putting in decades of hard work, we naturally expect to have financial security in our golden years. But not all Americans can look forward to a relaxing retirement. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2023 Retirement Confidence Survey, 64% of workers reported feeling at least somewhat confident that they will have enough money to retire comfortably, but only 27% said they were “very confident.”

If so many American workers are worried about their financial future, what other options provide a pathway to a comfortable retirement? For some, the only solution is to keep working. According to Gallup polling, workers in 2022 planned to retire at age 66 on average, compared to age 60 in 1995. The alternative? Relocate to an area where you can stretch your dollar without sacrificing your lifestyle.

Retirement isn’t all about the money, though. Retirees want to live in a place where they enjoy safety and access to good healthcare, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ideal city will also have lots of ways to spend leisure time, along with good weather.

To help Americans plan an affordable retirement while maintaining the best quality of life, we compared the retiree-friendliness of more than 180 U.S. cities across 45 key metrics. Our data set ranges from the cost of living to retired taxpayer-friendliness to the state’s health infrastructure.

https://wallethub.com/edu/best-places-to-retire/6165

10 Best Cities, Large and Small

Here are the two Top 10 lists for the best cities in America! You’ll be surprised to see which city took the top spot!

2. San Diego

Several years ago, travelers headed to San Diego might have wondered what they would do in the city, besides hitting the beaches. No longer. With a recent string of hot hotel openings (like the Guild and the Carté) and a legit food scene that offers up some of the best Mexican dishes and seafood platters you’ll ever taste, San Diego has officially stepped out from the shadow of its big sister to the north, earning world-class destination status that goes well beyond the waves. Come for the sunshine, but stay for everything else.

https://www.cntraveler.com/gallery/best-cities-us

California Exodus

The number of former Californians who became Texans dropped slightly last year, but some of that slack was picked up by Arizona and Florida, which saw their tallies of ex-Californians grow, according to new state-to-state migration figures released Thursday.

The flow of Californians to Texas has marked the largest state-to-state movement in the U.S. for the past two years, but it decreased from more than 107,000 people in 2021 to more than 102,000 residents in 2022, as real estate in Texas’ largest cities has grown more expensive. In Florida, meanwhile, the number of former Californians went from more than 37,000 people in 2021 to more than 50,000 people in 2022, and in Arizona, it went from more than 69,000 people to 74,000 people during that same time period.

California had a net loss of more than 113,000 residents last year, a number that would have been much higher if not for people moving to the state from other countries and a natural increase from more births than deaths. More than 343,000 people left California for another state last year, the highest number of any U.S. state.

Housing costs are driving decisions to move out of California, which with 39 million residents is the most populous U.S. state, according to Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

“We are losing younger folks, and I think we will see people continuing to migrate where housing costs are lower,” Pastor said. “There are good jobs in California, but housing is incredibly expensive. It hurts young families, and it hurts immigrant families.”

(more…)

Celebrities Leaving California

Mark Wahlberg says he has no regrets about leaving Los Angeles for Las Vegas a year ago.

In 2022, the actor said he moved his family to the Silver State to give his kids a “better life.”

Wahlberg is married to model Rhea Durham, and the couple has four children.

“Everybody’s adapted nicely. The kids are all out at school, and everybody’s happy,” the actor told PEOPLE magazine in an exclusive report. “I want to be able to work from home. I moved to California many years ago to pursue acting, and I’ve only made a couple of movies in the entire time that I was there,” he said at the time. “So, to be able to give my kids a better life and follow and pursue their dreams, whether it be my daughter as an equestrian, my son as a basketball player, my younger son as a golfer, this made a lot more sense for us.”

Wahlberg is part of a growing list of celebrities leaving California for a variety of reasons.

Months after Wahlberg revealed he moved to Nevada, actor Dean Cain announced he was moving there too. In an interview with Fox News in June, the “Lois & Clark” star revealed he moved to Nevada because of his issues with some of California’s “policies.”

“I love California. It’s the most beautiful state,” he told the network’s Brian Kilmeade. “Everything’s wonderful about it except for the policies. The policies are just terrible. The fiscal policies, the soft-on-crime policies, the homelessness policies.”

A month prior to Cain’s move, Scott Baio announced he was leaving California after 45 years, citing a KTLA story about homeless encampments in Beverly Hills. According to his X profile, Baio currently resides in Florida.

https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/mark-wahlberg-on-leaving-california-for-las-vegas-everybodys-happy/

Three hundred people leave California every day. If you are thinking about it, I can help you!

Most Neighborly

What are the 10 most neighborly cities in the U.S. in 2023?

Neighbor.com ranked cities across the country based on violent crime and property crime, volunteering, voter turnout, charitable giving and population:

Madison, Wisconsin
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Sarasota, Florida
Rochester, New York
Provo, Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
Ogden, Utah
Raleigh, North Carolina
Richmond, Virginia

Overall, the results found that 94% of Americans will help their neighbors in the event of a natural disaster and 64% are likely to ask for help from their neighbors if and when needed.

Top 25 Places to Enjoy Retirement

Forbes screened more than 800 locales in the U.S. for everything from climate change risk to crime to availability of doctors. We then compared those that made the cut for what they offered in leisure pursuits—from the arts, fine dining and learning to hiking, skiing, watersports and golf.

Here are the top 25:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampbarrett/2023/09/15/25-best-places-to-enjoy-your-retirement-in-2023-traverse-city-and-other-top-spots/

Least Expensive States


Although a state’s housing costs can be an important consideration when deciding where to spend your post-work years, retirees should also consider another expense: health care.

As you age, you may become more reliant on health-care services. Relocating to a city or town with lower health-care costs after you retire could help you save money, Kerry Hannon, retirement expert and author of “In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work,” tells Bankrate.

Keep other factors in mind as well, such as whether you want to live close to family members and which kinds of activities you would like to be able to access.

“It’s a new adventure, and you should really take the time to do the prep work financially and personally so that you make smart decisions,” Hannon says in Bankrate’s report.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/12/most-expensive-us-states-to-retire-in-2023.html

Pin It on Pinterest