Educate your yourself and your clients to decrease expenses and achieve housing goals.
Although housing affordability is an issue across the country, there are solutions. Here are seven questions to help you make housing more affordable for you and your clients:
- Can you change where you live?
- Do you buy or rent?
- Can you dispute your property taxes?
- Can you shop around your property insurance?
- Can you rent out part of your property?
- Can you make your property more energy-efficient?
- Does it make sense to downsize?
Likely, there is one thing on this list you can act on today to make housing costs more affordable. Let’s look at each item in more detail.
1. Can You Change Where You Live?
Moving elsewhere is not always easy, depending on your life circumstances. Many times, however, there is a location not far away that is more affordable than where you currently live. Places like the Midwest are getting favorable attention for the region’s relatively affordable cost of living and quality of life as well as a good return on investment for real estate investors. So, if you can change your location, many times you can improve your housing affordability.
2. Does It Make More Sense to Rent Than to Own?
In many parts of the country, renting is cheaper than owning. Renting brings the added benefit of not having a mortgage and greater flexibility and mobility. Although there are certainly benefits for people to own and build equity, sometimes renting makes better financial sense. For example, you can rent out your previous residence or any investment properties you may own. The positive cash flow from owning rentals may even help offset your personal housing expenses.
3. Is it Possible to Dispute Your Property Taxes?
If you live in an area where housing prices have softened, it may make sense to dispute your annual property taxes. You have a short window of time to dispute them after you get your assessment, so be aware of the deadlines. Make an appointment with the taxing authority during the time they consider revising property taxes and bring comparable recent sales information for properties like yours to support your effort to reduce your taxes.
4. Can You Shop Your Property Insurance?
Most places in the country have seen property insurance increase recently due to a variety of factors. Still, rates differ among carriers, so it pays to shop your policies around annually, even in places in the country that have lost insurance carriers due to large losses in the area. If you escrow your insurance payment, you don’t always pay the bill directly, but you usually get a policy statement at renewal, so call around that time.
5. Can You Rent Part of Your Property?
There are many ways to reduce your personal housing expenses by renting a room in your house as a short-term or long-term rental. Can you turn your basement into an apartment, build an accessory dwelling unit on your property, or rent your garage or barn for storage? By renting out a part of your property to someone else, you are providing safe and affordable housing to them while helping to reduce your own housing-related expenses.
6. Can You Make Your Property More Energy Efficient?
Energy costs have increased along with everything else, so if you can make your home more energy efficient or use less energy, you will reduce your housing costs. Also, check into tax incentives or incentives that may be available through your local utility company to improve the energy efficiency of your property. It is surprising how much you can save when you reduce your utility costs.
7. Does It Make Sense to Downsize?
With so many people retiring and interest rates starting to drop, it may make sense to move to a smaller property just because you don’t need as much space as you once did. Moving to a smaller property saves you money on the payment, lowers your utility costs, and saves you time because you have less property to maintain. Although downsizing may not be an option presently, it may be an option to consider for the future.
Certainly, housing affordability is an issue we all can relate to. There are, however, things under our control for reducing our housing-related expenses. Choose one of the items discussed that speaks to you and begin being your own housing affordability advocate today.
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