Reblogged from BethMannRealEstateLaw:

The Huffington Post   Alexander Eichler First Posted: 10/24/11 01:35 PM ET Updated: 10/24/11 07:17 PM ET President Obama and White House officials announced a major change to a national home-refinancing plan Monday, in an effort to stimulate the economy and rescue as many as one million homeowners from foreclosure. The proposal, an update to the Home Affordable Refinancing Program, is the latest in a long series of White House efforts to rehabilitate the housing market, which has been struggling to shake …

A quick read to keep you updated.

In this video “Opening the Lines of Communication,” Mary Alexander from Home Instead Senior Care offers more tips for effective communication with seniors — starting with when and how to begin the dialog. A good rule of thumb is to start talking while your aging parents are fairly healthy, and there are no apparent concerns. Home Instead recommends following the 40-70 Rule of parent-child communication, which is explained here.

Chris Stewart, SRES is a Real Estate Broker with Windermere Pacific West Properties in Salem, Oregon. One of her specialties is working with boomers and seniors over 55 who are downsizing, changing lifestyle, moving into retirement, or moving into assisted living. She is an active book club member and former Team Oregon Instructor.

Reblogged from The Elder Law Experience:

Physician-assisted suicide is one of the most controversial yet important ethical issues related to Elder Law. It has been the topic of numerous attempted legislative acts, controversial court decisions, and heated debates held by people from all walks of life. According to the American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics, physician-assisted suicide occurs when a physician facilitates a patient’s death by providing the necessary means and/or information to enable the patient to perform a …

Controversial for sure – informative, definately

Reblogged from Really Home blog:

The “life experience” of building your own home. Realize first, this is a huge, life-controlling undertaking.  If you’re not actually constructing the house yourself, but acting as your own contractor, you must still be on the site daily.  Daily.  Everything that can go wrong — a wall in the wrong place, holes drilled into your beautiful new kitchen cabinets that do not fit the hardware you so painstakingly selected – will go wrong if you’re not there to question everything.  Is that because …

Take a look at this clip with some common sense advise on expensive yard care.

Margaret in Buffalo is afraid the young man doing her yard work may be overcharging. She needs Mary’s advice on how on how to deal with the seemingly money-hungry young man. Mary offers a simple way to combat the lawn boy’s stimulus plan.

Mary Maxwell is known for her honest and humorous take on aging. Now, she is answering questions sent in by seniors with the same deadpan sense of humor.

Chris Stewart, SRES is a Real Estate Broker with Windermere Pacific West Properties in Salem, Oregon. One of her specialties is working with boomers and seniors over 55 who are downsizing, changing lifestyle, moving into retirement, or moving into assisted living. She is an active book club member and former Team Oregon Instructor

A behavioral economics term defined by Richard Thaler, Cornell University, the endowment effect is where people often demand much more to sell an object than they would be willing to pay to buy it.

Let’s think about that for just a minute.  People often demand much more to sell an object than they would pay to buy it.

This reading brought on an acute moment of clarity for me – here is much of my real estate career defined by a term I did not even know existed!

Most of us believe we are rational decision makers. Many believe strongly that those rational decisions are “data driven.”  But data is only information. It is the interpretation of data which leads us to conclusions; and as the endowment effect research indicates, such interpretations are substantially subjective. Otherwise how could we explain the different conclusions economists (or for that matter appraisers) arrive at when analyzing our economy (or the value of our homes). Because of our own desires and beliefs, we skew data interpretation towards the conclusions we prefer.

Those of us who work in real estate have seen this phenomenon in action over and over.

There are benefits for everyone in understanding the endowment effect.  It should help buyers and sellers arrive at a realistic value.  Buyers are extremely knowledgeable in today’s market. And buyers do speak when it comes to value.  Enough time on the market, buyers speak even in their silence, and what the market will bear becomes apparent.  In the end ……. all that matters is what a buyer is willing to pay. The endowment effect reminds us that we are all only rational and data driven within limits and it is healthy to remember what those limits are.

This is a great video that helps us understand the endowment effect.

Sources:  Thaler, Nofsinger, Fredrick Peters

Chris Stewart, SRES is a Real Estate Broker with Windermere Pacific West Properties in Salem, Oregon. One of her specialties is working with boomers and seniors over 55 who are downsizing, changing lifestyle, moving into retirement, or moving into assisted living. She is an active book club member and former Team Oregon Instructor.

This article by Harvey Jacobs in the Washington Post came out a year ago and is worth repeating.

Many taxpayers are preparing for their annual battle with IRS form 1040 by gathering up all their documents, statements, checks and other assorted papers. At the end of this process, taxpayers are often left with piles of neatly sorted, tabulated and cross-indexed piles. From a homeowner’s perspective just what documents do you need to keep, and for how long? (click here for rest of article)

For years, buyers and sellers have been waiting for that singular event to occur that would cause a quick market recovery. But 2012 will mark the fifth or sixth year of the real estate recession, depending on who you talk to. I predict those consumers who have not already done so will drop unrealistic hopes for a fast return to the heady real estate fortunes of the thunderclap years and subprime era. Instead, people will make their real estate plans based on:

Today’s low home prices, rather than the fantasy of what could happen if the market miraculously came back;

Assumptions of very low, or no, appreciation in home values for years to come;

Very conservative estimates of their own finances and how they will grow.
As a result, buyers won’t break their necks to hurry and buy before prices uptick; rather, they’ll save and plan to buy when it makes the most sense for their finances. Homeowners will do the same; they will either refi, remodel and be content where they are for the long haul, or decide their homes no longer fit their lifestyles and their finances, divest of them and move on. But the good news is, people will make these decisions based on what is or is not sustainable for their lives and their finances, and not based on inflated hopes about what the market will or will not do.

Chris Stewart, SRES is a Real Estate Broker with Windermere Pacific West Properties in Salem, Oregon. One of her specialties is working with boomers and seniors over 55 who are downsizing, changing lifestyle, moving into retirement, or moving into assisted living. She is an active book club member and former Team Oregon Instructor.

Mary Alexander from Home Instead Senior Care provides tips on caring for your senior loved ones during the busy holiday season. This video will help you prepare for the holidays and covers topics from holiday travel, family gatherings to beating
the holiday blues.

Chris Stewart, SRES is a Real Estate Broker with Windermere Pacific West Properties in Salem, Oregon. One of her specialties is working with boomers and seniors over 55 who are downsizing, changing lifestyle, moving into retirement, or moving into assisted living. She is an active book club member and former Team Oregon Instructor.