30 Minutes A Day

I just found an interesting study that looked at time spent by apartment dwellers and homeowners on various activities. As you may expect, sleeping was number one for both groups (although a little higher for renters than homeowners). But, in the category of leisure, renters spent 30 minutes longer a day on these activities than homeowners, which is 15 % higher! The author links this finding to a variety of issues, but partly due to the exterior maintenance and lawncare that a homeowner must complete that is not necessary for an apartment dweller.

(Study information may be found here - "Housing Situation and Time Use." Jack Goodman, Hartrey Advisors - 703/527-6478 - jackgoodman@hartrey.com - www.hartrey.com - first draft: December 2, 2005)

So, the obvious correlation to this blog is that our homes are maintenance-free on the outside, much like an apartment. However, homeowners get the pride of ownership and benefits of owning real estate to go along with the extra leisure time.

30 minutes a day is 3.5 hours a week, 14 hours a month, 182 hours a year, and a whopping 3640 hours if you live in our home for 20 years. 3640 hours is roughly 6 months more of leisure time added onto your life. If you pair that number with the fact that people live longer with less stress and more fun in their lives, you have a magical result!

What does 30 minutes a day look like to you? Learn a new language, pick up woodworking, travel more, read more books, tutor an at-risk youth? The possibilities are endless!

The difference a year makes

Wow. What a difference a year makes.

This year for us at Timber Run has marked some memorable milestones - going vertical on our first 12 homes and clubhouse, having our first homeowners move in, welcoming over 1000 visitors to our model homes, winning a home tour award, and getting on board with Social Media (Twitter & Facebook). I am proud of where we sit today.

On a more global note, today marks the day that the Dow Jones Industrial Average overcomes the 10,000 mark for the first time since this time last year. While this is a momentous event for a number of reasons for the world markets, I am thinking of how this directly correlates to the housing market. I pulled a chart of the Dow for the last year. It looks like this:

See the obvious valley? That is what we call the "low point" in the market. However, if you didn't sell your assets in the market at this time, how low was it really? Is it really relevant to you at all? In a "hold" position, it really isn't.

Now, consider this, what if you had $10,000 cash that was given to you to invest. When would have been the best time to buy into the Dow? Right - at the lowest point. If you had invested $10,000 in the middle of March at 6,440 and sold it today at 10,000, you would have made $5,500 in six months. Not too shabby right?

So, now you ask, how does this all relate to home sales? The best time to buy a home is just the same time as the best time to buy in the market - at the "low point." That's great, but how do we know where the "low point" may be? Well, maybe we don't, but we can certainly see when things are beginning pick back up again. Maybe we don't buy at the exact bottom, but just as we start to see steady results that indicate we are on the uptick.

That time is now. Pending home sales are up and the positive housing data continues to filter in through various media sources. If you could look at a chart of the housing market, just like the Dow chart above, and see the obvious bottom, it would make perfect sense to take advantage of the unique opportunity of today.