Blog — James Whitener - Whitener Team

Owning vs Renting: Why High Rents Are Worse Than a Mortgage over the Long Term

Owning vs Renting: Why High Rents Are Worse Than a Mortgage over the Long Term If you’re at the stage in life where home ownership is nearly within your reach, you’re probably wondering whether you should start looking for a home or whether you should just keep renting. Renting is easier, people say, and it gives you more mobility. But over the long term, all that rent money can really add up – and it eventually reaches a point where buying a home is a better deal.

So why is paying a high rent a worse option than buying a house and getting a mortgage? Here’s what you need to know.

Renting Doesn’t Generate Equity

One of the single biggest sources of wealth in the United States is home equity – as you pay down your mortgage, you invest more and more of your money into your property, and it appreciates in value. When you eventually sell that home, you make a profit. The monthly payment is something you’d have to make anyway, whether you rent or own – but when you rent, your monthly rent money lines someone else’s pockets, while when you own, paying down your mortgage actually creates wealth for you.

Renting Doesn’t Give You Access To Homeowner Tax Credits And Deductions

There are all sorts of tax benefits available to homeowners that renters simply can’t access. As a homeowner, you can deduct your mortgage interest from your taxes owing, reducing your taxable income – but there’s no such deduction for renters. You can also deduct property taxes and some closing costs when you buy a home – there are no corresponding tax benefits for renters.

There are also several tax credits available to homeowners that aren’t available to renters. Things like renovations or simply buying a home for the first time can give you tax benefits that renters can’t access.

If You Can Muster Up A Down Payment, Owning Is Cheaper In The Long Run

One of the biggest hurdles keeping young people out of the real estate market is the down payment. It’s not easy, but if you can save up enough money for a down payment, you’re actually better off buying a home than continuing to rent.

According to Trulia, the median home price in metro Houston in Texas is just under $163,000, while the median monthly rent for an apartment is $1,550. That means renting would cost $18,600 per year, while buying a home (assuming a 20% down payment and 30-year term) would cost $9,384 per year in mortgage payments. In other words, owning is about half as expensive as renting in the long run.

Renting may be a good short-term solution, but over the long haul, owning is almost always better. Call a local mortgage professional to learn more.

January 5, 2023/by whitenerteam_admin

Embrace the Suck

Uncategorized

Day two, it’s not much… but it’s not nothing either.

Here we are, day two. I have to be honest that I’m beyond happy and amazed with myself for getting back here and doing this again. I have struggled with feeling and telling myself that I was lazy for my whole adult life. I have spent the time over the last year trying to redefine what that feeling meant, where it comes from and most importantly: how to fix it. I’m not celebrating just yet as things change. There are new challenges every day that throw a wrench into the plans that I put into place.

At the beginning of 2022 I recognized that what I lacked in many areas of my personal life, outside of work, was consistency. And to a certain extent it was also affecting my work. It took me an entire year to realize that the word I was focusing on wasn’t the root cause of my problems. It was a problem and maybe “the” problem. However, it was too broad and generic a term to really get down to the basics of why I was struggling in so many areas of my life.

I did some deep diving, some soul searching and some reading. What I found is that the root cause of nearly every issue that I have is a lack of discipline. The lack of discipline can be, in part, can be derived from a weak mental mindset. Now I know that this is still quite general and is going to require a lot more thinking and a ton more work. Work that isn’t a today thing, or a off and on thing. This is work that will never end as life isn’t easy. It’s not supposed to be easy.

I am working to build a mentality that includes a lot of clichés. I want to learn and embrace enjoying the journey, embrace the suck! I want to build a frame work in my mind of positivity and not allowing things that don’t go according to plan to ruin the path or the forward momentum. Life is going to throw shit at you and I know you have experience that immediate roller coaster feeling of accomplishing something big or getting to a place where you feel like you’ve finally figured it all out and then BOOM!… the next minute shit has hit the fan and everything changes. I want that explosion to create new and exciting experiences rather than ruining the mind frame, killing momentum and creating a rut that takes time to get out of. It’s time to get to work and stop living a mediocre life. You can’t define that for me… but right now neither can I. Day two in the books, here we go.

January 4, 2023/0 Comments/by James Whitener

How To Keep Your Address Private

Mortgage

How To Keep Your Address Private There are not many parts of your life that are private anymore. Today, it is relatively easy for someone to go online and look up your address in just a few minutes. At the same time, there are some people who have an easier time keeping their lives private. Celebrities, public officials, and other people who are frequently in the public light are able to conceal their addresses. Even if you aren’t famous, what do you need to do to hide your address?

Talk To A Real Estate Agent

If you want to keep your address private, the first thing you should do is talk to your real estate agent. There is a great chance that they have worked with someone who wanted to keep their address private in the past, and they can provide you with a list of steps you should take. Make sure the home you purchase is pulled off the MLS quickly. That way, someone has to go to the local Town Hall if they want to look up your home.

Use A Trust

You may also want to consider placing your home in a trust. A trust will specify how your assets are distributed after you pass away. You can use a trust to hide real estate purchases, meaning that only the name of your trust is going to be listed in public records. That way, people cannot find your address by simply looking it up online, as they will simply see your trust represented.

Form An LLC

You may also want to consider forming an LLC, also known as a limited liability company. The vast majority of locations do not restrict LLC ownership. This means that you can set up an LLC, specify the LLC as the owner of the property, and keep your name out of the public light. You may want to reach out to an attorney who can help you form an LLC.

Keep Your Address Hidden

The internet is a powerful tool, but you should not resign yourself to having your address listed online. Consider checking out a few of these options, and reach out to a professional if you would like help hiding your address after you purchase a new house.

January 4, 2023/by whitenerteam_admin

Just the Beginning

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The beginnings of a lifelong mental reset

I have dreamed of having a blog for a long time and have always wanted a writing project. I have started a book multiple times and have yet to finish it. Many ideas of how to do this and where to start have come and go. The subject matter has done just the same. Nothing has stuck and thankfully for good reason.

I have spent the last couple of years trying to dig deep into the recesses of my mind to try to find some answers to some of the biggest questions. Who am I? What do I want out of this life? Why do I want what I want? What and who is the driving force behind these reasons? All of these things have continued to circle over and over and I can’t really say that I have any absolutes to any of this. However, after reading a few books recently and after failing to truly start the book I want to write I have come to a few unmistakable conclusions.

The first and most important is that life is ever changing. I know this seems cliché and obvious but until you truly accept that fact that nearly everything is changing all the time, you will always be lost. It’s absolutely vital to embrace the change, accept the suck and just keep moving forward. This is something I have always struggled with. I have zero patience. I don’t say this lightly, I mean zero. There are short stints of patience like with clients and strangers which I’m sure can seem odd to some but this is a deep part of who I am that I can and will discuss on a later day.

The other is that “motion creates emotion”. I have spent too many years being mediocre and it is a self-deprecating and self-fulfilling mentality. It’s been since my early twenties that I truly felt obsessed to live life to it’s fullest and the one thing that changed was the ability and willingness to just move. Get up and get going. I can attribute this not so new idea to the willingness to read a few books and have a very real conversation with myself about what is going on to allow for such a mediocre existence. Now, when I say mediocre I don’t mean that I’m not good at my job. I don’t mean that I’m not a good husband or father. I mean that I have a little voice in my head that says you can be better, you can do more and most importantly you have dreams that are not as far out of reach as you once lied to yourself about. The reason is there’s another little voice in your head that makes excuses and says that you’ve done enough, you don’t need those dreams, it’s okay to watch TV right now. It’s not that those things aren’t and can’t be true… but I don’t want them to be true for me. The reason I’m writing what I’m writing right now is I need the outlet. I want to write my book but I have realized that I can’t write the book until I answer the big questions above and I especially can’t write it while living life well below the abilities that I have. I can’t write a book that is based on ideas and not experiences. I hope you join me for this journey and maybe we can all learn something from each other.

January 3, 2023/0 Comments/by James Whitener

Creative Holiday Storage Solutions

Around The Home

Creative Holiday Storage Soluttions Every holiday season when you get out the decorations, there always seems to be a period of organization where you need to untangle lights, sort out the broken ornaments and just get all of the trimmings in order.

Next year, skip the hassle of sifting through everything. The year-to-year holiday storage strategies below will help make next December’s decorating easy.

Hide Paper Up High

Utilize a space that is always vacant — the ceiling of your closet. Attach two strings of wire from the front wall above your closet door to the back wall. Make them parallel to each other and about two feet apart. Then you can slide your wrapping paper tubes across the two wires. No more crinkled or torn paper!

Bag Your Lights

The hassle of untangling holiday lights every year can become a dreaded tradition. A smart solution is to invest in inexpensive gallon-sized sealable bags. Label what each bag’s lights are for, such as the tree, mantel or outdoors.

Wrap individual strands around your arm and them place them inside the appropriate bag. Put all bags in one holiday storage container.

Recycle Wrapping For Your Breakables

After you’ve ripped off the wrapping and gotten to the goods, don’t just throw your pretty paper out. Reuse it! Run it through the shredder to create fun filling for the boxes that hold your ornaments and breakable decorations.

Get Crafty With Labels

Instead of writing straight onto the holiday storage bins, tape or glue festive envelopes to the side. Then you can write a list of everything in that box and put it in the envelope.

For those who like everything clean and organized, this means that if you switch out anything in the box, you don’t have to mark it out on the side — just change the paper inside the envelope.

Display Holiday Cards Creatively

Receiving holiday cards is a great way to keep in touch with distant family and friends. Instead of throwing the cards away each January, use a hole punch to create two holes in the sides of the card.

Then insert jump rings to make little picture memory books that you can display on the coffee table every year. For more around the home tips or if you are looking to buy a home with plenty of storage space, contact your trusted real estate professional.

January 3, 2023/by whitenerteam_admin

What’s Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week – January 2, 2023

Financial Reports

What's Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week - January 2, 2023 Last week’s economic reporting included readings on U.S. housing markets, pending home sales, and weekly readings on mortgage rates and jobless claims.

S&P Case Shiller Home Price Indices: Month-to-moth home prices fall in October

U.S. home prices fell in October for the fourth consecutive month. Wavering demand for homes was caused by rising mortgage rates and high home prices in many regional markets. The 20-City home price index showed the top three cities with the highest month-to-month home price declines were Miami. Florida with a -1.0 percent decline, Tampa, Florida where home prices declined by -0,8 percent, and Charlotte, North Carolina where home prices dropped by -0.9 percent month-to-month in October.

Year-over-year home prices rose by 21 percent in Miami, Florida; year-over-year home prices rose by 20.5 percent in Tampa, Florida. Charlotte, North Carolina reported a year-over-year home price gain of 15.0 percent as of October.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported that home price growth was flat from September to October as compared to a month-to-month gain of 0.10 percent in September. Analysts said that high home prices and mortgage rates have decreased demand for homes as would-be buyers face affordability issues and strict mortgage credit requirements.

Mortgage Rates Mixed, Jobless Claims Rise

Freddie Mac reported higher fixed mortgage rates last week as the average rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rose by 15 basis points to 6.42 percent. Rates for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages fell by one basis point to an average of 5.68 percent.

New jobless claims rose last week to 225,000 initial claims filed as compared to 216,000 initial claims filed in the previous week. Analysts expected a reading of 223,000 first-time jobless claims filed. Ongoing jobless claims rose last week with 1.71 million continuing jobless claims filed as compared to 1.67 million continuing jobless claims filed in the previous week.

What’s Ahead

This week’s scheduled economic news includes readings on construction spending, minutes of the most recent Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and public and private-sector jobs data. Weekly reports on mortgage rates and jobless claims will also be released.

January 2, 2023/by whitenerteam_admin

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