That’s when most people put their homes up for sale and the bulk of buyers are out there looking. The reason for this has more to do with school calendars than anything else. The theory is that most families that are on the move would like to do so during the summer.
Well, you know, yes and no. Maybe. Kind of. Probably. If you were somehow able to look at your whole life—from beginning to end—and examine how it would have turned out as a homeowner versus as a renter, odds are you’d be financially ahead at the end if you’d taken the ownership path.
On the day you move in the guy across the street might be a jewel, but a year later he might move out and you’ll be stuck with whoever replaces him. The upside of living in an apartment or rental house is that you can more easily and quickly get away from human problems.
When you buy a house, you buy a lawn and lawns have to be mowed, landscaped, raked in the fall, and reseeded in the spring. Lawns are the things your neighbors are always working on while you’re slothfully sitting inside watching a baseball game.
Whomever you deal with in the real estate process, it is always appropriate to ask for credentials. So it’s appropriate for you to ask about mine, too.There are bits and pieces of background about me scattered throughout this book, as well as a few personal ratings and ravings that you are free to ignore, but [...]