|| Homeowner

65. The dilemma of the homeowner

This past week, yes the whole week, was to identify a way to make the apartment ready for a sale.  The world of contracting for home improvement work continues to be highly fractured, with many digital newcomers coming in and wanting to fix the asymmetric information dilemma yet the dilemma continues.

There is a beautiful story in the world about being a homeowner, owning a piece of the equity in a piece of paper or a piece of the record in the county office that says you own the land and you own the construction of the property on land.  The cost of home-owning includes potential equity gain, interest payment being tax-deductible (not that true with the new 10K tax max) and getting back a piece of the equity with the sale of the property.  But no one is telling the story of what it costs to maintain as a complete novice a piece of property versus giving the work to a professional real estate property management. 

Being a financial analyst, I have to look back on the cash inflows and cash outflows.  1) apartment hardly has any equity gain, due to the lack of beautiful storytelling of owning a smaller space lives happier life 2) the cashflows, they hardly break-even for me, although I can see that the longer the stay goes around, there may be a little bit of the saves down the road but I'm sure new costs will mount either from replacing things inside the wall or needing to upgrade outside of the wall by the HOA.  At the same time, interest payment is maxed out by the new tax rule 3) getting back the equity, yes it's there but not before you pay the hefty 6% agency fee.

Hardly anyone is telling the dilemma story though ... not mentioning that calling 10 contractors with only one response from a new painting contractor with several emotional set-backs.  If you count the time and the emotional havoc of owning and maintaining properties, it's not worth it.  Will I ever become a homeowner again, I want to say no, but I may be tricked into the beautiful stories again despite my own dilemma story.

Taking the online digital course and there is an emphasis on telling the authentic story.  What's authentic, when you hear people look in your eyes and say what they believe in ... the stories are what you want to make a living with.