Jodi Raffa has been searching for a roommate for over a year. Her husband passed away five years ago, and compounding her loss was a 75 percent reduction in her household income.The 76-year-old lives in a sunny three-bedroom, two-bathroom home overlooking a lake in a 55-and-over community in Groveland, Fla. "I live on a very strict budget and am not able to indulge in any extras at all,” said Raffa, who worked in administrative jobs before she and her late husband retired in 2010. Raffa now views that move as a “hasty decision” in light of her financial circumstances.

Golden Girls Re-invented

In an 1987 interview with NPR, the late Betty White noted that the four women who lived together in “The Golden Girls” did so for social reasons rather than financial necessity. “All that I think we have accomplished is to show that there is an alternative lifestyle,” White told “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/07/1071242706/fresh-air-celebrates-legendary-tv-actor-betty-white">Fresh Air </a>” about the success of the show. “If you notice, ‘The Golden Girls’ are not together for economic reasons. They’re together for sociological reasons. It combats the loneliness.”

Single Boomers Struggle Finance Not Emotional Support 

Four decades later, the idea of housemates late into adulthood is experiencing a revival, but with financial factors front and center. As boomers live longer and retire without the financial safety net of employer-sponsored pensions, covering the rising costs of food, housing and insurance become major considerations. Linda Hoffman, president and CEO of the New York Foundation for Senior Citizens, which runs a <a href="https://www.nyfsc.org/home-sharing/">home-sharing program </a>, noted an increasing number of applications as finances become more of a stressor.

Where They Are Now

Even before the pandemic, demographics were shifting toward nonfamily households. In 1960, 85 percent of households <a href="https://www.prb.org/resources/u-s-household-composition-shifts-as-the-population-grows-older-more-young-adults-live-with-parents/">were composed </a>of families, according to the Population Reference Bureau. By 2017, that figure had fallen to 65 percent of households. As Americans continue to age, Harrell and others expect growing demand for more housing options. “As a society, we’ve been building and thinking about younger families and building housing and communities for younger people,” he said.

Trends Appeared Long Before COVID

The growing interest in home sharing, especially for those boomers who are house-rich and cash-poor in expensive housing markets, is being cultivated by nonprofit and commercial programs as well as municipalities. Since 2015, New York, Seattle, Denver, Tucson, Northern California and the metro Washington area all have established or are launching programs.

Inspiring New Businesses 

Boomers getting hit financially leaving more stress on housing market and economy 

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

Baby boomers are moving in together to save money

Presenteeism Happens When We Show Up To Work On Auto Pilot 

In everyday life, it’s easy to get sucked into the prevailing culture. We know what’s expected of us and what’s acceptable in our working life. Even when we are remote working, many of us still feel we can’t take time off for lunch, that we can’t go for a walk around the block when we need a break. <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90522017/there-but-not-there-is-your-team-suffering-from-pressenteeism">Presenteeism </a>rules. Even when there’s no one around to notice.

Fear Of Being Unprod

These office rules, real or self-imposed, are holding us back. They’re stopping us from doing our best work. When we don’t go and free-think by a lake—real or metaphorical—we are limiting our own achievements, and limiting our own success.

Ideas Come When We Are Mentally Free In Our Own Ways

Do the opposite. Sometimes, doing the opposite of what makes sense makes even more sense. When Nick got a new job in the east of London, his commute was going to take him on the packed tube. He knew that journey wasn’t going to provide the right frame of mind to set him up for the day. Instead, he worked out he could take the riverboat to work. On the face of it, it was a more inefficient journey, but taking the slow route ensured he always arrived more energized than if he’d taken the tube.

Pivo

Experiment with a “FriPlay” afternoon. Working from home can mean extended days, with often little segue from our desks to the family dinner table. Tasks creep into the weekend. Give yourself a break with a FriPlay afternoon. Every Friday (where I can), I’m clearing the decks around 3 p.m. to do something restorative: go for a walk with a podcast, jump on my bike, read a book. I’m giving myself a recharge, and providing vital mental space to cultivate new insights.

Build Time In Your Sch

Subtract, not add. A paper in the academic journal Nature outlined a human tendency that often, when we’re asked to improve something, we add something. But many times, subtracting can be a better solution. It’s why people struggle to improve things ranging from organizational red tape to their overburdened schedules at work. So if you’re looking to give your work life a boost, what can you remove to improve it?

Learn To Say No

A few years ago, Professor Francesca Gino taught two classes at Harvard Business School in which she experimented with her footwear. For one class, she wore a conservative suit with dress shoes. For the next group, she paired her suit with her favorite pair of red Converse sneakers. She discovered the “red-sneakers” students were more attentive and thoughtful, and they laughed more. Part of the difference was that the sneakers made her feel more confident and more poised when leading discussions. So, what can you wear from your wardrobe—perhaps a piece you never considered wearing

Wear your red sneakers

In his book In Praise of Wasting Time , Alan Lightman relates a story from during his time at the the California Institute of Technology about a fellow student called Paul. Paul used to sit on a bench for hours, receiving disapproving looks from passing professors who wondered why he wasn’t studying. Well, the Paul of the story is Paul L. Schechter, now a famous astronomer and observational cosmologist, and recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Natural Sciences. How did he get his ideas? Yes, you guessed it: sitting on that benchs

 Sit on a bench

Thought organization. When we take time to recharge we come back mentally ready. 

Presenteeism happens when we show up to work, even if we’re mentally checked out. Here’s how to get back on track and away from mindless performance.


productivity

Productivity

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

health

Health

timemanagement

Time Management

teamwork

Teamwork

6 strategies to try when you feel checked out of work

Heading into 2022, there was <a href="https://fortune.com/2021/11/29/housing-market-real-estate-predictions-2022-forecast/">a wide consensus among real estate firms </a>that the annual rate of home price growth—<a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPISA">which peaked at 20% in August 2021 </a>—would <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/01/04/great-deceleration-housing-price-appreciation-will-slow/">steadily decelerate </a>this year as some normalcy began to return to a housing market that had boomed during much of the pandemic. But now some experts aren't so sure.If inventory stays low prices will continue to soar and push more first time homeowners out of the market. Leaving investors. What happens if rental prices exceed the local market

Tight Market Means More Investors 

What's going on? Instead of inventory levels beginning to normalize this year, the situation is getting worse. In January 2021, the number of homes for sale was 26% below the level hit in January 2020. Last month we were 42% below January 2020. That lack of inventory means buyers will once again be forced to bid up prices if they hope to land a home.

We Aren't Seeing Prices Drop. 

If the year-over-year rate of home price growth does hit 21.6% in May, it would mark the highest since the data was first calculated in the 1980s. It would also be more than five times greater than the average annual rate (4.2%) notched over the past four decades—and well above the peak 12-month price jump (14.4%) recorded in the years leading up to the 2008 housing crash.

Record Breaking Growth 

Locking families out of home ownership is  going to stress neighborhoods resources if rent is unsustainable the market could overheat in metro areas like PHX 

If Zillow&#039;s forecast model is right, the rate of home price appreciation is about to set a new all-time high.

The spring 2022 housing market will absolutely crush buyers—Zillow says home prices to spike 22%

NFT stands for non-fungible token. "Non-fungible" means it's unique and irreplaceable. Popular tech website <a href="https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faq">The Verge </a>explains it well. Basically, it says, a Bitcoin would be "fungible" because if you traded one coin for another, you'd have the same thing.

What Are They? 

Think about your life at home. You probably use a bank. That bank is basically the middle man between you and whoever you're sending money to.A blockchain cuts out the bank. The blocks form a transparent, digital ledger that everybody can see. <a href="https://builtin.com/blockchain">Built In </a>, an online tech community, compared a blockchain to a Google Doc. Everybody can view it at the same time, and you can tell if it gets edited.

No Middle Man

For instance, let's talk about real estate. Houses aren't digital. They're physical. But, could a real estate transaction happen in NFT form? Experts say...yes.<a href="https://www.millionacres.com/real-estate-investing/articles/can-you-use-an-nft-to-sell-your-property/">Million Acres </a>explains it happened like this: First, an LLC was created for the property. Second, a non-fungible token was set aside. Then, legal paperwork was developed that said whoever bought the non-fungible token, or NFT, had the rights to the LLC. The NFT was then auctioned, giving the winner the rights to the LLC, which ultimately meant the winner owned the property itself.

What Are The Possibilities? 

When I retire will this be how financing property will be done? Part B of retirement? Financing property with my crypto? 

NFT stands for non-fungible token. So, what in the world is an NFT? We break down what an NFT means and what a blockchain is.

crypto

Cryptocurrency

What's an NFT? The concept explained in plain English

A home in Gulfport will be auctioned off Tuesday as an NFT. It’ll be the first piece of U.S. real estate to be auctioned as a “non-fungible token”, said current owner Leslie Alessandra.

NFT Property IR

Alessandra, a local real estate investor and founder of Tampa Bay blockchain company DeFi Unlimited, said she chose to list the home as an NFT to showcase the use of the evolving technology. An NFT is stored on a decentralized ledger known as the blockchain and is typically used for digital assets like music and art. In the case of the Gulfport house, it’s a digitally secure certificate of authenticity, similar to a deed.

Property Being Sold For Cryp

Minting property rights into an NFT would allow owners to sell a home as quickly as a Venmo transaction, she said. It would accomplish that by putting ownership documents under a limited liability corporation. In short: The NFT is an LLC.

Mint Property As NFT

“There probably will be ways to sell the property and then throw in crypto-backed mortgages,” Vasilakis said. “But we’re just not at that moment.” NFTs are relatively new and it’s hard to say how this could work in the future, he said. There could also be challenges with cryptocurrency volatility. It’s not clear if the value of a house tied to an NFT would be affected by the crypto market.

Financing With Crypto Backed Mortgages 

I wonder if this would create a more even lending process. 

A Gulfport house will sell at auction next week to transfer the property rights  “instantaneously” over the blockchain in a first for the region and maybe the nation.

This Tampa Bay home is being sold as an NFT 

So many of Millennials with housing regrets. What are they? Why do they feel this way? How does the broker community help?

Housing For Millennials 

<ul><li>A new <a href="https://www.realestatewitch.com/2022-millennial-home-buyer-report/">survey </a>found that 82% of millennials regretted something about buying their first home. </li><li>Those who rushed to buy were more likely to have buyer's remorse, and most regretted their location. </li><li>It's a byproduct of the housing crisis, which pressures millennials to buy what they can. </li> </ul>

Stat

Buyer's remorse is real.Just ask millennial homeowners, the majority of whom regret buying their first home. So finds a <a href="https://www.realestatewitch.com/2022-millennial-home-buyer-report/">new survey </a>by the real-estate education platform Clever Real Estate that polled 1,000 people about their homebuying plans. Of the respondents who already owned a home, 82% had at least one significant regret about their home purchase.

82% Have Regr

One in four millennials said their home value decreased while the same amount said their mortgage was expensive. Since buyers often had to shell out more than the asking price to outdo competition, many now realize they overpaid. The survey found that one in six millennials would offer at least $100,000 above asking price for their dream home. Almost half of millennials anticipate maxing out their budgets to buy a home, with one-third planning to spend more than the median US home price of $405,000 at the time of the survey in November.

Biggest Regret Is Financial 

I want to learn how to truly help this generation build wealth through homeownership that doesn't create this regret. 

A Clever Real Estate survey found that 82% of millennials had at least one big regret about buying their home, such as location or rushing to buy.

Baby boomers are moving in together to save money

6 strategies to try when you feel checked out of work

The spring 2022 housing market will absolutely crush buyers—Zillow says home prices to spike 22%

What's an NFT? The concept explained in plain English

This Tampa Bay home is being sold as an NFT

Jenn Molina