Spring has wonderfully sprung in Minnesota, with warm weather, flowers blooming, and outdoor sports. Unfortunately, the real estate market hasn’t noticed. In Minnesota, every real estate agent will tell you to get your property ready for spring, when buyers flood back into the market. That’s the approach we’ve used for the rental townhouse we’d like to sell. Our son moved out in March (on a … Continue reading Spring Housing Stall
Living in Celebration FL, has been a unique experience. While some people don’t like the idea of living in an HOA-managed community, Celebration really makes it work. The town was originally designed by The Walt Disney Company, and thanks to the dedication of our HOAs, it has largely maintained that original vision of charm, order, and community spirit. One thing that sets Celebration apart is … Continue reading HOAs Working Well In Celebration
Our modest experiment in being landlords has ended. Our son – who we were bribing to be our neighbor for the last 3 years – has moved to an apartment in a cool neighborhood of downtown Minneapolis. His new space is much smaller, but in a very slick building close to all of the coffee shops, bars, & restaurants all the hipsters like him like … Continue reading Moving On From Landlording
My buddy Russ told me that once we bought a place in Florida, we’ll be buying “two of everything”. I thought we could get by with having our Florida vacation place be a little spartan, but it’s not turning out that way. Just one year in, we’ve gotten to the point where I could pretty much go back-and-forth to our home in Minnesota without … Continue reading Two Of Everything
Short post this morning. I just wanted to share this scary chart I ran across. We all know that housing affordability is at a 4-decade low, but this chart really brings it home. The bars show what % of people are are able to get mortgages they can afford. Only 6% of home buyers (green bar on left) could do so within the traditional mortgage … Continue reading Housing Unaffordability
To start with … my apologies to everyone that left comments in the last week and heard no response. I got a new iPhone and couldn’t get my WordPress or JetPack apps to work. We also left for Florida and I didn’t have my laptop or iPad to access the site. Sorry! Speaking of Florida, it turns out we didn’t escape Hurricane Milton unscathed. When … Continue reading Hurricane Milton Damage
We’ve only had our Florida condo for 8 months so far and are already facing a big hurricane … Milton. Big Milton is currently a massive Category 5 and moving across the gulf toward Tampa. From there, the 500-mile wide storm is expected to sweep across the state, losing strength as it goes, but staying a hurricane. Its current ‘cone’ takes it right across our … Continue reading Hurricane Watch
Since this is the week of the Vice Presidential Debate, our Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz, will be in the media spotlight. While he was just picked by the Harris campaign in July, it has seemed as if he was campaigning for a bigger office for some time. He and Florida Governor & former-GOP Presidential Candidate, Ron DeSantis – who we also have a first-hand view … Continue reading Sparring States
A few weeks ago I wrote a post on the places in the USA with the “most comfortable” weather. Many retirees are looking for a place to plant themselves with sunny skies, pleasant temperatures, and low humidity. Coastal California leads the country, but the analysis of Florida didn’t look quite right to me. The chart said Central Florida – where we just bought a vacation … Continue reading Comfortable Weather Re-Examined …
I ran across this interesting map from MyPerfectWeather.com the other day. It shows – by US County – where the weather is more frequently between 60-84 degrees as a daily high. For most places in the country, that’s between 50-150 days. Some places – particularly on the very West Coast – are in the 250-300 range. Los Angeles approaches an amazing 350 days! In retirement, … Continue reading Living Comfortably
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