Posts Tagged ‘investing’
What is a Lifetime Home?
Livable for the Lifetime
Any “house” can be a Lifetime Home. Regardless of square footage or type, a Lifetime Home will accommodate you and your family no matter what for as long as you choose to live there. In other words, a Lifetime Home adapts to you, the opposite of Peter Pan Syndrome, which produces houses designed and built as if nobody changes. A Lifetime Home isn’t a style, but an essence, a smart, high performance house regardless of climate or geographic area.
Does that mean it’s expensive? Could be depending on your choices and preferences. But making sure throughout the house that no outlets are lower than 18 inches nor any switches/controls are higher than 48 inches doesn’t cost an extra cent. NOT building steps could actually save money by…..not building steps. So as with so many questions, the answer “depends” on what you make it.
However, even if you want the latest and greatest in your Lifetime Home, you need to assess the total cost (i.e. actual expense and opportunity cost) over the long term. The Gizmatic might cost more today but what if it performs flawlessly, lasts forever, keeps you active, secure and comfortable longer? Or maybe you can live without. So cost is relative, particularly compared to the continued rising cost of long term and assisted care.
Finally, a Lifetime Home could be your dream house or “the last move” but not necessarily. More importantly and regardless of life stage (e.g. imagine children), a Lifetime Home is convenient, comfortable, efficient and secure for everyone (including visitors) no matter their age or abilities. A Lifetime Home is multi-generational for YOU throughout YOUR decades. A Lifetime Home is about ANY-ability not inability/disability. It’s simply smart.
How does your home measure literally? Grab a tape measure and review the BuilderFish Lifetime Home Survey to learn how your home compares.
Questions? Email me.
Lifetime Home Survey
I was on a mission and took six months developing the Lifetime Home Survey (LTHS), which was born of a single negative comment following a post class, feedback form. Without ever knowing his name, I still picture the disgruntled attendee with arms crossed, an engineering type who frowned the entire presentation.
His comment? “Didn’t give specific measurements!” I purposely avoided getting technical to reduce the likelihood of audience slumber; but, after reading Mr. Unhappy Engineer’s feedback, I vowed, “Metrics you want, measurements thou shall get!”
Call me obsessive compulsive but, with Mr. Unhappy Engineer’s scowl burned into my mind, what began as a simple checklist grew (out of control?) into a whole house assessment. I referenced 17 documents and architect teammate Charles Hendricks proofread the final product, what we believe to be THE most comprehensive Universal Design home assessment resource currently available on the web.
Flipping for Actual Profit
(This is the first in a multi-part series over the next few weeks.)
I recommend you stop while you’re monetarily ahead if your attitude about real estate investing is similar to how you felt tumbling down the stairs Christmas morning. Get out now before you blow serious money and time. Like any form of investing, success is contingent on a studious and disciplined approach. I don’t want to begin this series with a negative vibe talking down to you; I merely hope to discourage the dreamers. The Housing Bubble is full of stories of folks who watched a late night infomercial, decided a fortune awaited and ran out the door seeking riches with no-money-down “strategies”. About the only people who made out in those deals were the producers and performers on the infomercials.
So I’ll begin this series about real estate “flipping” by explaining what it is NOT. Flipping is NOT buying a home, holding it and hoping to sell for profit in the future. That’s called speculation or gambling and it’s how a lot of so-called investors lost their shirts during the boom. For those who did actually succeed in making money by “buying low, selling high” banking a net profit as a result of market value appreciation, that’s called good fortune or luck. And many times those same “investors” didn’t actually make as much money as they thought because they didn’t account properly for taxes and holding costs, which is a mistake even seasoned, bona fide real estate investors occasionally make when local market dynamics throw them a curve. (I’ll cover a down market in later posts.)
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