Scott Your Broker

            What Were You Thinking? Us humans are often short sighted and make big decisions without thinking things out. We use the soft and cuddly emotions and little logic. We sometimes do it with relationships. We do it with food. We do it with our spending. And recently, 23 million Americans did it by getting a Pandemic Pet. I am not saying everyone who brought a pet into their home between March 2020 and May 2021 did it without thinking it though. But there are very few emotion-based decisions we make in our worlds than to bring home a fur baby. Never mind that you thought it was a better choice than having to talking to your spouse 24 hours a day during lockdown. There are long-lasting affects to bringing a pet into your home. Going back to the office is a big problem now. Fido and Tabby think your world revolves around them and your everlasting one-handed massages. When you do finally return to work outside the home, your fuzzy friends ar...

NEWS FLASH! If you think homes are less affordable today then you are wrong! In case you haven't heard, housing inventory is at an all-time low. Realtor.com just  reported that there are 39% fewer homes for sale today that there were last year.   At the same time, buyer demand remains strong.  In a recent newsletter, research analyst Ivy Zelman explained: "Although the headwind of severe supply constraints in most markets has contributed to slight moderation in seasonally-adjusted and year-over-year new pending contract growth for two consecutive months (albeit still growing strongly), the underlying strength of buyer demand, particularly for this time of year, remains apparent." Let me simplify what this long-winded expert just said. Low inventory of homes for sale and high buyer demand is driving the market.  Whenever there's a shortage in the supply of an item that's in high demand, the price of that items increases. That's exactly what's happening i...

Many times before have I written about how homeownership is one of the greatest ways to begin building you and your family's wealth. And it appears the Federal Reserve agrees with me as new data released by them indicates the net worth of a homeowner is actually over 40 times greater than that of a renter . Maybe it's time to get serious on how to buy that home.     Every   three years the Survey of Consumer Finances shows the breakdown of how owning a homes helps to build financial security. In the graph below, we see that the average net worth of homeowners continues to grow, while the net worth of renters tends to hold fairly steady and be significantly lower than that of homeowners. The financial gap between these two groups keeps getting wider over time, making homeownership more and more desirable for those who are ready.  Owning A Home Is A Great Way To Build Your Wealth For many families, homeownership is a sort of 'forced savings'. Every time you pay your m...