While you may have been ready to buy a home during the 2020 spring market, the uncertainties caused by the pandemic may have put a damper on your plans. At this point, you may be uncertain about your post-COVID-19 real estate goals and unsure whether the opportunity to work from home will inspire you to move to another market or another type of home.
If you’re looking to get ready for a home purchase a few months down the road, this plan will help ensure you’ve covered all your bases. From finance to logistics, it’s important to think through the changes on the horizon to streamline your 2021 home purchase.



Preparing to finance your purchase
One of the first things you’ll want to think about is the financing for your home purchase. Talk to a real estate professional and ask for an introduction to a mortgage lender, if you don’t already have one in mind.
Talk to your lender about the pre-approval process. When it’s time to begin seriously ...

Whether you’re big on Halloween parties, planning the perfect Thanksgiving feast, or focusing on the December holiday season, if you’re also planning to sell your home, you may be contemplating holding off until January. After all, nobody buys houses this time of year, do they? In 2020, the answer may very well be “Yes, they do.”
The COVID-delayed spring market and pent-up buyer demand, along with low inventory in the spring and summer selling season and record-low interest rates, means that for many buyers the search for the perfect home is ongoing. If you were thinking of waiting until 2021 to sell your home, you might want to consider moving your plans up and listing your home during the fall and winter months to take advantage of strong buyer demand.



Advantages of Listing a Home During the Holidays
There are plenty of good reasons to list your home during the holiday season, including the following:
You’re likely to find more motivated buye ...

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It doesn’t matter how perfect your home is—if your listing photos don’t stand out, potential buyers won’t come by to take a look. In our series "Lessons From Listing Photos," we dissect the smart updates sellers have made to their homes, and how their listing pictures highlight the home’s best assets.
This spacious Portland home has an innate cool factor, thanks to its high ceilings and midcentury architecture. When the sellers purchased it for $548,000 in 2012, it was already a unique home—but the dark, outdated interiors were badly in need of a refresh. It's a good thing this place had so much potential!
A total redesign with a Scandinavian minimalist twist turned things around, and in 2019, it sold for $920,000.
So how did embracing less result in a home value that nearly doubled? We went straight to our experts to find out what the best design moves were from the sellers—and how you can make it happen ...

In an effort to help my clients gain wealth through investing in real estate, I’m recommending checking out these options of making additional principal payments in advance.  Whether it's your own home or an investment vehicle for retirement, you want to be smart about managing your finances 
This can shorten the length of your mortgage term and allow you to build equity faster. Your additional principal payment comes directly off the rear end of the loan and your balance is paid down faster.  You'll have fewer total payments to make, in-turn leading to more savings.
This can be a dramatic improvement to financial targets, retirement plans, college fund acceleration, by shortening the life time of the mortgage and use of the future funds to save and spend on other important plans.
In the below example, an additional payment of 200 dollars to the principal on monthly basis, can shorten the life span of a 30 years mortgage by over 8 years, not to mention the ...