My wife and I traveled the world over the years and have had amazing experiences and wonderful memories. We intentionally did this when we could. We didn’t wait to build our dream house on the water and have many great years there. We are so very glad we did not wait until retirement age to start living our dreams. The big reason we’re thankful for doing what we did is that Anna had a stroke 13 years ago, leaving her right-side motor activities limited. This has not stopped us from traveling but certainly would limit traveling and the dream house would not work today with all the stairs.
“What’s your point, Dave?” Live life now.
I hear it all the time. “We’re going to wait for rates to go down.” “We think prices will go down.” “We’re going to pay off the car before we buy a home.”
We don’t have a huge savings or retirement account but we’re still happy with our choices and although we no longer live at the beach, we overlook a beautiful vineyard and are within 15 minutes of our grandchildren! And we have the memories.
For the last 63 years the average real estate appreciation has averaged 4.74%.
The median price in Ashland right now is about $538,800.
Let’s say you buy a $538,000 home. At 4.74% appreciation (Note – the last 5-year average is higher than that at 4.83%), the appreciation for one year would be $27,672. Not a bad return in a year.
According to my math, even if you buy now and rates go down and you want to refinance, you are better off buying now even if you have to refinance in a year or two.
About a third of mortgage loans today are refinance loans. Many are cashing out to buy a vacation home, travel or pay off high-interest-rate debts.
But you know, it’s not always about the numbers. Sometimes it’s about doing what you want or need to do right now.
Carpe Diem is not the fish of the day. Life is too precious to park it.
