Real Estate

We rebalance our paper assets regularly but with real estate, we have so far treated it as a long-term buy-and-hold. However, a variety of factors are making us reconsider whether to hold, sell or refinance.

In my last post, I weighed the rent v. buy decision for a property we would only use part-time. The property we were considering was a duplex (not pictured) in upstate New York, about 30 minutes from Albany and near a SUNY (State University of New York). While the property had enough potential that we made an appointment to visit it with a real estate agent, we ultimately passed on [...]

We’re not actively looking to buy more real estate right now, but every week or so, I look at certain geographies I’m interested in – one of which is upstate New York near Albany. We already know the area because I helped a friend who lives there come up with viable alternatives when a rent-to-own deal went bad. There are several small towns clustered together, and as it turns out, [...]

How often do you adjust your investments? Periodically (annually, quarterly), one should rebalance their portfolio. If one asset class has run up in value, you might have more money invested there than you originally intended. Similarly, if an asset class has decreased in value, you might have too little exposure, if that investment still fits in with your plans. As we look at our investments, potential overexposure to Jacksonville real [...]

I loved seeing this post on Business Insider featuring five different real-life examples of house hacking House hacking is renting out part of your home to cover your mortgage and potentially even make a profit. In the post, you’ll see owners who took on roommates for spare bedrooms or bought a duplex to live in one unit and rent out the other. One owner renovated an unfinished basement to rent [...]

Analysis of Google search data, courtesy of luxury real estate platform RubyHome, shows that searches for ‘HELOC’ – the acronym for “home equity line of credit” -- more than tripled in the United States as of July 2023. This is the highest level of search interest in internet history for the topic. The report suggests that the increased interest is due to people looking for relief from rising costs and [...]

This reader is looking to buy in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, and wants to know how much anxiety is too much when embarking on a real estate purchase. What would you advise? I just happened to come across your blog post from 2018 on why you decided not to purchase in Langosta. I am literally about to put in a purchase offer on a property in Tamarindo…and am having second thoughts. I think [...]

We sold three of our real estate properties in the last year, just so we could have a more liquid and balanced portfolio. Yet, we recently closed on a new purchase – a studio apartment in Jacksonville, FL with a view of downtown. We had been looking at units in this particular downtown building for a couple of years now. We even bid on a penthouse studio late last year [...]

Last month we closed on the sale of Casa Salita, the second property we purchased in Costa Rica. Though we bought it only in December 2017 (just over four years ago), we started thinking about selling it in the midst of the pandemic because we weren’t sure where rentals were heading, and the market for selling Costa Rica real estate was hot. However, we didn’t put the home on the [...]