Did you know that your home can be an excellent source of funds? Tapping your home equity can be a low-cost way to borrow large sums at favorable interest rates in order to pay for home projects or debt consolidation. Home equity debt is not a good way to fund recreational expenses or routine monthly bills.
You’ll want to choose wisely how you utilize these funds, but given the incredibly low interest rates, now would be a perfect time to consider this option. Here are some of the most common ways to access the equity in your home: a Second Mortgage or Home Equity Loan, a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC), and a Cash-Out Refinance. Here’s a link to the differences between these options. The best option for you will depend on your financial situation and future plans.
The smartest strategy for accessing your home equity really depends on what you want to do with the money. Some examples are: lump-sum expenses or debt consolidation; home improvements or starting a business; pay-off high interest loans or credit cards. These options can be extremely helpful for anyone saddled with unexpected financial challenges. Home equity debt can also be a good way to invest in the future. The key is to make sure that you are borrowing at the lowest possible interest rate. Rates are now at historic lows.
A Cash-Out Refinance was a personal option for my wife and myself. As interest rates started to decline, we opted to refinance our first home, which we still own. We were able to pay off some credit card debt, and more importantly, we were able to use some as a down payment toward the purchase of a second home.
If you’d like to learn more about what your current home value is and how to make it work for you, I’d love to be a resource for information or to connect you with a mortgage advisor to help you unlock some of the equity in your home.
Impressions of Home
Perhaps some of my fondest childhood memories are from our family home in La Cienega, a rural community just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The home itself was a traditional adobe with a maze-like floor plan, flag-stone floors, creative built-ins and seven fireplaces! None of the fireplaces had dampers (= bad energy score!) and there was a cracked viga (traditional wooden beam) that worried us all … gotta tend to those home repairs! But what captured me most was the surrounding 2.5 acres and beyond. Running alongside the home was an irrigation canal filled with pollywogs and wild spearmint. Next to the canal an enormous cottonwood tree and treehouse with a perilous entry over a cliff. We had endless dirt hills for forts and Big Wheels and a creek where we’d build dams and go fishing. It was a truly magical place to grow up.
La Cienega, New Mexico • 3 bed 2 bath 7 fireplaces 3658 sq. ft. 2.5 acres.
This house was purchased for $43,500 in 1975. Now valued at $471,000.
The purported interest rate back then was near 9%.
My father once arranged for my sister and I to play Zoolander and model some clothes for a Japanese children’s fashion magazine called SESAME. The photographers chose our home as a backdrop for many of the photos. Below you can see the sketchy treehouse above the cliff and irrigation canal and an old claw-foot bathtub my parents eventually installed in another home. I don’t recall receiving any dough or threads for my hard work, and I can guarantee you I haven’t dressed this well since. Just glad they captured my happy mug!
Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about what your home equity can do for you.
Now it was time for some of the planting fun! We chose a few beauties to be focal points in the garden, including a Japanese maple, weeping blue cedar, bonsai and a pink hydrangea and rhododendron. Additionally, we planted a handful of ferns and grasses in groups of 3. We are fans of not over planting and giving everything room to grow. These were purchased from multiple Eastside businesses including 
With the plants in place, it was time to purchase mulch and rock. Lucky for us, fabulous 
One of our final tasks on the project was to produce our own concrete circles in the path. My partner had a bit of experience working with concrete from his previous house, and he was excited to put his cement mixer to use again. To create the large circles, he constructed molds out of fiberboard and we placed them in the empty path. Then the concrete was mixed and poured in multiple batches. We made the small circles off to the side and simply placed them in the path after they were dry, and then finished filling in the river rock. 
In-person tours are still an option in many cases when necessary, but with precautions we take very seriously. We recommend live video tours for anyone that has cold or flu symptoms or concerned about a possible COVID-19 exposure. This goes for clients, as well as, agents. Our agents are following the recommended 6 ft of social distancing and strict hand-washing and disinfecting policies. Our agents provide our COVID-19 Safe Showing policies to clients for review prior to visiting any property in-person so you can make the best decision for your health and safety.
We are a small business that puts the care of our clients and agents first. I started this company six years ago because I knew there was a better, more innovative way to serve clients. This is an industry that one-size definitely does not fit all. Inhabit has always been forward-looking and our size allows us to be nimble in creating services that address changing needs and goals. We are here to give you the best real estate advice possible, now and into the future.
And just like that, it’s February 2020. If someone asked you when you were a kid what you thought 2020 would look like, did you picture this? I visualized space travel, robots, flying cars, lasers and futuristic stuff…not this everyday adulty life gig.
prices” part though. Affordability is a major concern. The chasm between the cost of Portland real estate and our median household income seems to be growing. Jobs are coming but wages haven’t caught up and the cost of living keeps climbing. This pushes buyers to outlier markets (Vancouver, Milwaukie, Beaverton, Oregon City, etc). For the urbanites that don’t want to pay for the high priced houses but want to stay in town, they’ll drive demand in the ‘attached’ market (townhouses/condos) which had a slow 2019. This will stabilize pricing in the attached market. Properly priced, well-presented, detached houses from the $200k to $1m range will continue to fly off the shelf. The $1m-$1.5m market is a ‘move up’ market for many wanting to upgrade from their existing home . This market presents opportunities for buyers to make a great purchase; however, tapping their “trapped equity” from their existing home in order to make this purchase can present challenges (certainly not insurmountable but can be daunting to the client). In surprising fashion, Portland’s upper end market ($1.5m +) is moving at a pace you may find interesting (fast). Of course, these properties need to deliver the full package to fetch the price, but this market segment seems very confident in Portland as a place to make these big purchases. I find these big numbers surprising as I clearly remember how freaked out I was when I bought my first house in Mt. Tabor for $185k. However, like many other places, we are bursting at the seams. The numbers for incoming population growth are staggering which in real estate economics translates to demand. Portland is in high demand which has all but diminished the lower end of the market and made it feel normal to buy and sell very expensive real estate. 
Even though we’re not living in the Jetson-like society that I envisioned as a kid, 2020 is chock full of new and exciting stuff: self-parking, electric cars, virtual reality, and an impressive (and concerning) amount of technology & connectivity. At the push of a button, you can have almost anything you want delivered to your doorstep within hours. Heck, you can push a button and order up a random Realtor to open up a house for you (but how dare you do that!). Real estate is no exception to the expectation of today’s “now society”. As professionals, our response time must be faster, our knowledge deeper and our ability to navigate this market must be sharp and focused. One thing that technology can’t change, is the human factor that is necessary to create happy buyers and happy sellers in real estate transactions. This is our wheelhouse. We embrace today’s disruptions & technology and use them as tools to enhance our clients’ position and experience; however, we feel more strongly than ever that real estate is a people business and we are here to stay. 
Not the best illustration, but it’s colorful!
Okay, so this vat is 100% more like the stuff the Joker falls into than it is like radon, but I’m running out of visuals, here.
Ventilation = good
The joy of understanding zoning.
This is a zone map of a little piece of Portland. You definitely do not need to understand what all this means.
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