Category: Real estate

UPDATE 20TH OF AUGUST 2020.

SO SOME OF OUR CLIENTS HAVE ASKED US TO UPDATE THIS OLDER ARTICLE AND WE ARE DOING SO NOW TODAY.

So New York has experienced a mass wealth flight in the past 6 months time and the city will never be the same again that it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

WE WILL SEE A TSUNAMI OF BANKRUPTCIES AND MORE THAT 60% OF ALL RESTAURANTS,NIGHTCLUBS AND COFFEE SHOPS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RE-OPEN AGAIN!.

And this just feels horrible, but there is a very weak leadership in the city when it comes to the elected politicians and we can not see that the commercial or the residential real estate bounce back ever to the levels it was prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

So New York is backsliding right now back to the crime levels of the 1980s and that is not good for the city and more and more people are looking to leave the city.

And in California and Los Angeles there is a huge problem with inventory sitting and becoming stale even if many news outlets would like you to believe that the housing market is heating up again, it is not, they are just playing around with numbers.

And now there are even talks about raising taxes up to 54% in California, it just sounds nuts to any sane person!

So let us start with stating once again that we have nothing against California or New York city , what so ever.

But also as real-estate expert i have to point out the huge differences that we can see between these three markets, and we will also explain why so many people and families are leaving California and instead are moving to Texas.

Let us just look very simply at an average hard working family of which both parents are working full time in New York city or Los Angeles.

Let us say that their combine income is 220.000 dollars each year pretax.

They are working mid level jobs and non of them are management.

So let us look at California and Los Angeles for say to begin with, and what we can clearly see is that the average home price is around 700.000 dollars.

This is a truth with some serious modifications to it, you do not get pretty much anything for a family these days in the Los Angeles metro area for under one million dollars.

But actually you will pay at least 2 million dollars if you want to live in a decent house in a decent neighborhood.

We are not talking Beverly hills, Brentwood, Malibu, Bel air, when we are talking about the 2 million dollar mark.

We are more talking about areas like Los Feliz, Hollywood hills east, Tarzana, Sherman oaks, and the last one here Sherman oaks have been a big family driven area for the past 10 years time and the prices have gone up a lot during that time frame in the VALLEY.

The real estate prices are now in 2019 higher than they where before the great recession in 2007-2008, and where the bubble busted in 2008-2009.

So this is the home-buying situation in California, and in the San Fran area, the so called bay area and it is even worse in areas close to the silicon valley area.

Then if we look at the property taxes they are around 0.79% in California and you have a sales tax at around 6%.

So now you might jump out of your seat and say hey mrlifeadvise, that is actually a much lower property tax than the national average which is around 1.5%.

That is a very true statement, but then keep in mind how much more a home costs to buy in California compered to Texas for say.

So there is no reason to think that the migration from California to Texas will stop anytime soon.

All of you know, when you have a 1-1.5 million dollar budget and you end up looking at a dump in Silver lake, that is way to small for your family, or something more of a new construction in North Hollywood for instance, you feel dirt poor.

Or should we use the well known NEW expression (house poor).

Simply for hard working Americans , you will have trouble finding a good family home and still make a life for yourself and your family.

Because when your mortgage and HOA and other fees , electricity , garbage, water comes into play not to mention the property taxes, forget the restaurants and the other fun activities for your family, without maxing out your credit cards very quickly along the way.

So California is a losing proposition right now , when it comes to keeping hard working families inside its city and state limits.

NEW YORK CITY, YOU ARE SO PRETTY!.

So New York has even a bigger problem than California has with its real estate prices and an average home costs around 800.000 dollars, and the same goes with new York as with Los Angeles you really need to take this sum and triple it, if you want something a little bit better than a dump.

If we look at the property taxes , we are looking at an average of 2.5% give or take, and the sales tax is ball park at 9%.

So then you say, you dont have to live in the Manhattan, you can live in Queens or Harlem and Brooklyn.

That is very true, but once again if you are looking at a home from 1-2 million dollars you will have to live outside of Manhattan with your family to avoid a total dump!.

And the prices have rapidly gone up in Brooklyn , the Park slope area mainly over the past 6-8 years time.

And Harlem is also changing rapidly, so the prices are also going up there also.

So the one benefit that New York has on Los Angeles is that they have a fully functioning subway system that can help you out with your commute back and from your place of work.

(I know Los Angeles has a subway system , but good luck riding it around the city) this is from someone who knows the LA from the inside and out, commute wise.

So here you have the same high costs for all the extras like Water,Garbage and electricity,property taxes, but you also have very high costs of child care if you are two working adults.

In Los Angeles, you can find undocumented child care (nannies) who will help you cut a piece of your child care costs.

This is a bit more uncommon in New York, even if it of course also exists there.

So once again, a lot of people are migrating also from New York to Texas.

And the young people usually opts for the very HIPP , Austin, area, and families usually goes for the Dallas and Houston metro areas , where there are a lot work possibilities.

So now let us talk about Texas and what really drives people to Texas?.

First of all compered to Los Angeles and New York city you dont have a personal income tax to pay, which is huge.

The real estate market is an outlet price market or if you want to call it a bargain market compered to LA and NYC.

So if we look at Texas the medium home price is somewhere around 197-199 thousand dollars.

And Dallas has an average home price in 2019 at around 212.000 dollars.

Houston has an average home price of 290.000 dollars.

And Austin has the highest of these three places with an average home price of 301.000 dollars which is a rise of almost 40% in a ten year period, which is a lot!.

So the same goes here as for LA and NYC, you have to increase your budget price if you want something better and in a better area.

But compared to LA and NYC you only in most cases have to double your budget from the medium home price in Texas compared to almost having to triple it in the other two cities like LA and in the NYC.

So for around 400.000-600.000 dollars you get a really nice family home in these cities.

And the one thing we also have to look at is that even if Texas has a 1.86% property tax which is almost double to the national average in America the home prices are much lower, the so called(assessed) prices, which the tax is normally calculated from.

The sale tax is around 8.5-8.8% in Texas, which is on the higher side for sure.

So for a family bringing home 200.000+ dollars each year pretax, the Texas migrating is very understandable if you are coming from California or New York city.

Where this take home pay is almost at a poverty level, which feels almost ridiculous to say out load, but it is in these two cities.

Simply put, you will get much more bang for your buck, in Texas than you get in these two other places.

And your salaries will not be much lower in Texas, if lower at all!.

Specially if you work mid level in a company and you have a lot of skills to bring to an employer but you are not management.

And every parent knows how good it feels to be able to bring your kids on that holiday or let them play hockey which is an expensive sport to play today.

Because you have money left over for that, you are not house poor in Texas, and your mortgage is not keeping you up at night.

So then someone might come and say, but hey there is so much more to do in LA and in the NYC than you have to do in Texas.

And i usually answer when somebody leaves a comment like that, in this way.

In Los Angeles the most overrated place is the beach, and on an average an Angeleno will visit the beach once a year.

So if we take away the beach, from this equation what else does LA have that Dallas for instance does not have?.

So usually there is no good answer to that question.

So you can ask yourself this question, why am i paying true my nose to live in California?.

And the same question goes out to the people residing in NYC, why am i paying true my nose to live here in this concrete jungle?.

Of course there are more to do in the NYC than there is in Dallas, but Dallas has enough to do without getting boring to live in.

And Texas is also as a great state to raise a family in.

There are a lot of good and healthy family values in Texas.

So mrlifeadvise fully understand why families and people are emigrating out from the LA and NYC METRO AREAS into TEXAS.

So because some people feel that i might be attacking LA and the NYC this is not true at all.

I actually like both cities a lot, but to raise a family in these cities has just gotten harder, and harder for each year, and if you look back 25+ years it is like night and day, to get the ends to meet on a monthly basis.

So then some of you might answer me like this, my job is in LA or NYC , and i can not move!.

Then my question to you is this, have you even tried to look around in cheaper states for a similar job, or a job that you can handle, with your education and work experience level.

Please remember that it does not always have to be the exact same job description, usually you can do much more than you think you can.

I know what i am talking about, i made a big mistake in my life buying a home for my family for 1.7 m dollars when we could actually only afford a 1.2 million dollar home at that time.

So we lived in a great area, but we had no extra money to do anything, even if i liked the area a lot the 30 min move to a neighboring area made all the difference in how the family lived on a daily basis.

And it created so much tension with in the family, so after a 5 year period we did down grade to a 1.2 million dollar home and we here no longer house poor!.

So i understand the urge when you are bidding on a home that you love,and your family loves, but please always think twice about, can you actually afford this home or not?

The bidding wars are one of the most scary things when it comes to buying a home.

The urgency to get the place makes you do stupid financial things, in the heat of the moment.

And usually you want to take a step back when you are 10% over your budget for a home.

I usually say that the 10% mark you might be able to swing, but when a home goes from 1 million dollars to 1.3 in a bidding war you should usually step out from it before you make a huge mistake for you and your families future.

Thanks for reading.

mrlifeadvise.

So this is not an article about i told you so!, when it comes to NYC and LA real estate markets that we have written about before in this blog.

But here are some facts about New York city real estate in the beginning of August 2020.

5% of all residents have left the NYC and another 15% are looking to leave, the city is spiraling out of control as we speak, we have even homeless outside of 20 million dollar apartments on the upper east side shooting up heroin on the streets.

So you guys who remember the NYC in the 70s and 80s and early 1990s you know what is coming your way, for you others you are in for a surprise, and not a really nice one.

Police are quitting in droves and here we are, and the rent on Manhattan will drop by a good 30% in the upcoming 24 months time both private and commercial rent.

But make no mistake that the apartments that are trading for 5 million dollars these days will trade for 3 million within 3 years.

So many people are moving away to Texas and Florida and this will affect the NYC real estate prices for a long time to come, both for renters and sellers.

It is not fun to sit with an apartment that you bought for 5 million dollars last year and there is no offers or only 3 million dollar low ball offers coming your way.

So a lot of sellers will get into deep trouble in the next few years in New York.

So as you know NYC is really expensive to live in these days and if you move to Florida or Texas you get a big house for 500.000 dollars ,but in NYC you get a shoe box in the Bronx or Brooklyn for that price.

Of course the COVID-19 pandemic has also accelerated the leaving from the NYC and the same goes for LA.

Democratic run states with high taxes and being weak on property and personal crime is not a good mix for real estate prices one bit.

So what about the LA real estate market? , so we know that houses that traded for 15 million dollars in the last few years are trading closer to 10 million dollars these days.

And very well off people are actually eating the losses on houses they paid 15 million dollars for a few years back and they take 9-11 million dollars for the same property these days.

So now we have covered the super expensive real estate ,but what about the normal to mid level 1.2-3.5 million dollar homes, what will happen to those prices.

So the cheaper homes will trade at close to the same level they have before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the reason for this is quite simple people and families need to live some where.

But homes close to down town and certain areas like Venice for instance will drop in price due to the unsafe environment, even more so than it was pre covid -19.

So families will look at properties as far away from Skid row and down town and Venice where the home less population is growing by the numbers each week.

Now we need to help the homeless and fixing the mental health and drug issues, this is a bigger topic but all of this will drag down the real estate prices.

Now you need to remember that New York has 4 times more cops than LA has, okay LA has also the Sheriffs , but there is still much fewer cops in the LA area than you have in the NYC area.

So some might say that this is now a good time to buy a home in the next 24 months time when the home prices are dropping from ATH levels, and yes if you are gonna stay in LA or the NYC this can be a good time to buy that home you could never afford before.

But keep this in mind we are living in a brand new world and there are no signs that LA and NYC will ever become as hot markets for real estate as they have been in the past 20 years time, so be careful when you buy, because you might be sitting with that property for a very long time to come.

Final thoughts: so when better off and wealthy people do not feel safe in a city they leve, and with that a large tax base with them and this is the big risk for both the NYC and the LA metro area that if taxpayers leave towards better run states there will be even less money to fix problems in these cities, and of course this all will affect the real estate prices both on the buying and renting side of things, it will be a renters and a buyers market for the next 36 months to come in these very large cities one on the east coast and one on the west coast.

Stay safe.

Mrlifeadvise.

So as we have mention in the past, we will start to see a big decline in the real estate prices in the US during this years 2020.

And now after all these horrible protest people are starting to realize why Texas and other states are better at protecting their citizens compered to California and NYC.

This is also one of the reasons that Joe Rogan the comedian,pod-caster and UFC commentator is considering moving to Austin from the Hidden hills.

So we can see clearly that the houses with a price point from 2.5-5 million dollars will drop a ball park 25% this year in value in LA.

So how should you think when you are looking at buying a house in Los Angeles in 2020 as a first time home buyer.

If your job and your family is there, and you need to live there and you want to buy a house, then you should look at buying in the VALLEY, so the Fernando valley(yes we know it is a bit warmer than the 90210 zip code) but the prices are 1/3 compared to the 90210 zip code(Beverly Hills).

So the Toll brothers builds really nice turn key houses for 1.4-1.9 million dollars in the Valley area.

So if we would buy a house today in Los Angeles we would buy from the Toll brothers a turn key home in the VALLEY.

If you look at the Hollywood hills for instance and you drive up from the Sunset boulevard there is no security in the world that can stop an intruder when you have so many hiking trails and mountains.

If you have ever seen the movie Heat with Al Pacino and Robert Deniro and Val Kilmer among many other really good actors.

In that movie there is a hit on the banker the owner of the bearer bonds that where jacked in the robbery, and the hitter comes from the slope mountain side into the glass based living room.

So what would happen if 20 cars start to drive up into the Hills and robbing people blind.

And there is no police near you to call (defund the police).

So this is why the VALLEY is a better option it is a bit to drive from Down town Los Angeles.

So when you on the hunt for a a first family home in the LA area, we would recommend the Valley to anyone.

The one thing you always have to remember in a expensive market like the California real estate market it, make sure you do not end up house poor!.

House poor means that you have no money for anything-else than food and your house.

So never ever overspend on your first house purchase.

Because when you are on the younger side you want to do things, and thing usually cost money unless you love going hiking.

So good house hunting!.

Mrlifeadvise.

So if you own a property in Los Angeles or in the New York city the bad news is that it will go down in value during the next 36 months time.

So then you say how do we know that?, the reason is simple and we have touched on this topic in the past.

The answer is remote work or digital nomad, you can call it what you want.

The Covid-19 crisis has stress tested companies and the abilities of the workforce to work remotely/ from home, instead of coming into the office every day.

And the answer is crystal clear, that many employees wants to work from home.

In the past many companies have been reluctant to let employees work from home, but now they have cold hard facts on their office table and in the board rooms, that this actually works well, much better than they had ever hoped it would.

And the benefits are simple, you dont have to commute to work, you can eat at home for lunch and you get to see your kids and your pets much more, than you do during a normal work day when you have to get yourself to and from your office.

Of course not everybody can work from home/remotely , but 90% of all office workers can work as digital nomads.

This will now also become a negotiation question to be able to hire talent and to keep talent at many companies.

So besides the benefit package, the remote work possibility will be one of the biggest asks from employees to sign up with an employer.

And this factor alone will mean that a lot of young people and also some 40+ years old will leave to cheaper citys outside these mega citys.

So let us give you a very good example of this.

You are out with your wife looking at a house in the Hollywood hills and you find houses from 2 to 4 million dollars.

Then you look at the same house in Henderson/Las Vegas and the price is 700.000 dollars for the same type of house with the same lot size.

We took Vegas as an example , when we compared to LA , of course there are smaller towns in California that you can have really high life quality in.

But for the sake of the conversation, Vegas is a big enough city compared to LA that you find all entertainment there that you do in LA.

Now some might say that living in Vegas is not as much fun as living in LA.

We want to put it like this, how often do you get to the beach in LA if you dont live in Malibu,Santa Monica,Venice or Orange county.

And your decent size homes starts from 4 million dollars and upwards in these beach size communities.

Then the second issue with LA is the traffic on the 405 or wherever you need to go, the roads are always jammed up.

So you are not gonna drive to a friends house from the Hills to Malibu for a cup of coffee in the evening.

This is something you might do in a smaller town where you have anywhere from 5-20 min to get to your friends house.

Then when we are talking about New York city you will pay 3000 dollars for a studio apartment on Manhattan and you will get 400 sq.

For 800 dollars you get a two bedroom apartment in a smaller city outside of New York city.

So a lot of young people WILL NEVER MAKE THE MOVE TO THESE MEGA CITIES, but as we said also older FOLKS will look at remote work as a great way to increase their own and their families life quality by moving outside of these mega cities.

And we are not talking about just moving to the Valley in LA.

Because the Valley is starting to also get very expensive.

And by the way so is Brooklyn also in many places these days.

Even Bronx are starting to see higher rental prices in some areas.

So this is a trend that will continue for at least the next decade.

So this is a trend that we will not be able to reverse any time soon.

And this means that the hey days are over for the real estate markets in the mega cities but also in bigger cities.

So this is also one major reason that California is getting drained of tax payers that are fleeing in hords to Texas and down to Florida, this will be looked at in another article soon in great detail.

And California prices on real estate will keep going down hard during the upcoming 36 months time.

After that they will start to stabilize a bit.

And of course if you can afford your current mortgage then you are not in any trouble.

So you might want to hold off on buying property for a few millions in the next year or so, so you really see where the prices are heading.

But we will see a foreclosure tsunami in the next year or so in these mega cities LA and New York, because the buying power simply wont be there.

Take care.

Thank you for reading Mrlifeadvise.

So the bad news for the commercial real-estate industry is that we will see less and less tenants looking for that prime office location in the next decade.

Like TWITTER has told their employees that anybody that wants to stay and work from home can do so in the future.

We will see companies look for cheaper commercial real estate,in the next decade and they will be looking much more outside of the prime locations of today.

Companies will still use commercial real estate but as the US strip and shopping malls have seen in the past decade , the commercial real estate will see that the habits have changed in the consumers mind.

So around 2010 the online boom really started and people could see that you can by a lot on www.amazon.com and also becoming a Amazon prime member is well worth the money.

Amazon is the big fish, but the thing that has almost destroyed the shopping and strip mall industry is that many vendors are focusing more on the e-commerce side of things, rather than opening up a store in a mall.

In shopping malls you have to obey by a lot of rules, when you are aloud to be open, and when you have to be open and all costs have risen a lot in the past 2 decades, the decline of customers have forced many malls to close.

So the commercial real estate market will find out that at least 50% of the workforce that are sitting in offices down town, actually can do the work from home and be maybe even more efficient, than they did in the office.

And our best guess would be that on Fridays maybe there will be an office day where all the employees that works remotely would meet up at the office or even at a coffee shop to meet in person and keep the company dynamic going that way.

So signing a 5 year 1 million dollar a year lease will be much less frequent and even larger companies will be looking at either building there own office building outside of the city or finding a 300.000 dollar a year lease, in a location that is not prime real estate location.

For many companies this remote work from home, has been a things that they have not been totally sure of, now with the COVID-19 pandemic hitting they can see raw data that for every week the work speed has picked up a bit.

Because it is a really big change in an office workers life working from home compared to heading in every morning to the office and coming back home in the early evening.

So you need to build new routines when you wake up and how you take your lunch break and other breaks at home.

And once you get the hang of it, then usually the work speed is higher at home than in the office.

For a lot of companies allowing people to work from home can actually keep the workforce more intact than you would other wise be able to do when it comes to the turnover of personal.

Almost every business world wide benfots from low turnover of the staff.

Not all talented people like sitting in small cubes working 9-5 and having to commute 2 hours each day.

So this is not good news for commercial real estate and particularity for commercial real estate in the big cities.

This reason here above is the main reason that many major investors like Carl Icahn and others are betting against the commercial real estate market these days.

Mrlifeadvise.

So let us begin by saying that we love New York city in so many ways.

It is the melting concrete jungle who some of us have seen since the 1970s crisis, high crime rate, to Giuliani cleaning it up by the broken window policy in the 1990s.

And to what it is today, one of the absolutely most expensive cities in the world to live and work in.

So for the past 10 years time this debate has been brewing on forums around the world, about why New York is so expensive to live in.

Yes it is expensive as a city, but it is the small island Manhattan that is incredibly expensive to live in.

We know the medium price is 500.000 dollars , but lets face it, you dont get anything in Manhattan for that price.

You are looking at 1.5-2.5 millions for decent 2 bed room in 2020.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the hot zone that the city has become today, there is no coming back from this.

People are realizing that paying true your nose living on top of each other , having people flying in from all over the world every single day and riding the subway, eating at the same restaurants as you is a recipe for disaster, make no mistake about that!.

More and more young people will understand that living this close to each other, will always be a hot zone for any upcoming pandemic in the future.

And yes Bill Gates is right, more outbreaks will come over the next 10 years time!.

So living in a rural town in Montana or Idaho, dont sound so bad right now does it?.

Okay you dont have to live in a small town in Montana or Idaho, but maybe not in a huge city like New York city, where more than half of your paycheck will go towards rent or your mortgage.

So New York city has survived a lot, but the Covid-19 really broke the belief in the city.

Yes we know the city is very resilient, and so are the residents and if it was a cheap city to live in , then maybe it would not be the most overrated big city in the US , but now it is high end cost wise in every aspect of a persons life.

And the cost in combination with this pandemic and more pandemics coming will see a lot of young people leave and look for a new brighter future somewhere-else in America.

And this is good news because New York city is so overpopulated, without any doubt.

So we are gonna see a 25-30% drop in real-estate prices over the next 18 months time, and this time they will not bounce back, that we can tell you for sure.

It will go slow in the begging since people are sitting still, but when a lot of people wants to sell at the same time, which will be the case in the end of this year, then you swill see the enormous amounts of apartments coming out at the same time to very few active buyers.

So if it ever will be a buyers market now it will happen in this city also.

This is not 2008, this is 2020 and we are in a very different reality that over before.

Stay safe and take care.

Mrlifeadvise.