Change is knocking at your door, and we're here to help you welcome it in with open arms and a prepared mind. Together with Christine Fiske, I, Beth Rooney, delve into the art of letting go—of homes, possessions, and past identities—to unearth the boundless possibilities that await you in 2024. We shed light on the common apprehensions that cloud the horizon of change, be it the bittersweet farewell to a home steeped in memories or the daunting task of sifting through a lifetime of keepsakes. Discover how a touch of creativity coupled with a growth mindset can transform these challenges into a journey of self-discovery and reinvention.
In an era where the housing market ebbs and flows with unpredictability, we arm you with insights and a seller's guide to navigate these choppy waters with confidence. Uncover the silver linings of current market trends that could tip the scales in your favor, and learn how to discern which home updates are truly worth your time and investment. Embrace the inspiration found in shared experiences within your community, and let that be the wind in your sails as you chart a new course for your future—one where letting go paves the way to an exhilarating chapter of your life story, with fewer things but fuller experiences.
Change is knocking at your door, and we're here to help you welcome it in with open arms and a prepared mind. Together with Christine Fiske, I, Beth Rooney, delve into the art of letting go—of homes, possessions, and past identities—to unearth the boundless possibilities that await you in 2024. We shed light on the common apprehensions that cloud the horizon of change, be it the bittersweet farewell to a home steeped in memories or the daunting task of sifting through a lifetime of keepsakes. Discover how a touch of creativity coupled with a growth mindset can transform these challenges into a journey of self-discovery and reinvention.
In an era where the housing market ebbs and flows with unpredictability, we arm you with insights and a seller's guide to navigate these choppy waters with confidence. Uncover the silver linings of current market trends that could tip the scales in your favor, and learn how to discern which home updates are truly worth your time and investment. Embrace the inspiration found in shared experiences within your community, and let that be the wind in your sails as you chart a new course for your future—one where letting go paves the way to an exhilarating chapter of your life story, with fewer things but fuller experiences.
Welcome everybody to the Abundant Investor Podcast. I'm your host, beth Rooney. I'm here with my co-host, christina Fisk, and we are so happy to be here today, january 1st 2024. Yes, we love the conversation that we have teed up for today. If you're like us, you like to plan, you like to get ready for a new year, new beginnings, new excitement, and we have a lot of really fun things to talk about.
Speaker 2:
Love it. I love it so much. This might be my favorite time of the year, and we are a few days before January 1st recording this, so we're right in that somebody called it the fertile void. It's like this quiet time between Christmas and when we've all been so busy and we kind of hit this climax of Christmas, and then it's the let down and we can decompress a bit and really start to get clear on what it is that the new year beholds for us and what we want it to behold. So I just think that's so exciting and there's so much that we're excited about for next year and I think we want to help you think about that too.
Speaker 2:
And the question that's really coming up for us is what's holding you back from what you really want in 2024? We're going to talk a little bit about the state of the market, what we see happening with real estate. We're going to talk about the things that get in our way of claiming it, whatever it might be, and we're going to dive into some. Maybe for you, there might be some less conventional ways of doing life as it pertains to where you live, how you live and how you invest and pay for your housing.
Speaker 1:
I love it. I love it and I think let's just start off with that big question around what's holding you back? And I下去 and alone at the same time. Christine, you've been around real estate for a long time, as have I. I've managed real estate offices for a long time and it's so interesting to me when I meet people that have been intending to sell or move for years and are being held back. I noticed that over time I've seen a few trends. When we've asked this question to people and we're asking you to ask yourself this question if you'd like to make a change in really any aspect of your life what is it that's holding you back? I have found through my experience that in real estate it tends to be. One is I don't know where to go. I have no place to go because they think that they have to buy another place. That's one common theme. The second common theme is I don't know what to do with all of my stuff. Break down those themes, those myths, and give some insights there.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I would say related and a little bit different too is the oh. But my kids have always grown up here, we have been here as a family and there's a nostalgic holding on to what we've always had and that something might go away if we leave our physical present, If we leave where we actually live, the house that we've grown up in, built a family around. So there's a fear of letting go there too.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I agree, yeah, exactly. So let's start off by talking about well, I have no place to go, because I think what happens here is people look around and, like they do in many aspects of life and we're all guilty of this you look around your close circle and say, well, I haven't really seen anybody do things differently, so I'm going to sort of live the life maybe like my parents did is where they stayed in that big house until the very end, until they were kind of forced to go to some type of retirement community. Yeah, or you know. So maybe they haven't seen people go and travel a lot or sell their home and rent for a while.
Speaker 1:
And I think that what we would propose is that you think about this really like what would spark joy to you, what would be so exciting for you, and then seek people that have maybe done something like that, as opposed to saying what is everybody in my life before me done, or what are the people around me doing, and just switching that, because what you seek, you will find, and you'll find people that have done this.
Speaker 1:
And the beautiful thing about what we're doing, christine, is we get to talk to so many people, and we've met people that have done so many fun things like selling their big home to their child, maybe, or building an in-law on their home and then selling it to their child and using that in-law as their main kind of place to be, or, you know, selling the big home and renting, and maybe in a community that's nearby but not in the same community, they raise their family and testing it out, or maybe actually being so bold as to move, put all their stuff in storage and spend a year traveling from a furnished apartment to a furnished apartment, maybe a couple months at a time. So we've been able to see people run the gamut on that Exactly.
Speaker 2:
And I think the key here is to being very open-minded, having a growth mindset, which we talk about a lot, about the options and that they're all available to you, and a lot of times it's letting go of an old identity which is often in our subconscious. We don't even realize we're doing it. We're just prodding along and doing the same thing that's been done by our ancestors, by our parents, our ancestors, for a long time, without realizing or feeling safe in our bodies to do things a little bit differently. So what does that require? Well, it requires getting really clear on who's the person that we want to become. So if you're really adventurous and there's a part of you that's just yearning to travel and I say this in my coaching round people want to leave their career and they want to start something completely different or they want to start a business. We've got to leave the old identity behind by embodying the new person that we want to become. And it's really the same when we're thinking about moving or living in a new place, and I think that this is a home, is a very deep rooted thing for a lot of people, and we feel really grounded in our homes and we feel comfortable and familiar and so really allowing ourselves to feel safe to try something new and see other people who are doing this. So we were just having a conversation before we got on the air, talking about how many people we know who are doing things differently and how exciting it is and how that's prompted the two of us, especially recently.
Speaker 2:
For me, this has been a big thing for me to see other people doing things outside the box. It was okay to sell my home and then move my family into a rental. Was there some resistance? Sure, and we're all doing great now and everybody's happy. We're six months in and everyone is thriving. People are doing fine in. We're actually doing more than fine, and it was a really good move for us because it was aligned with what our bigger dreams and goals were, and that included having freeing up some equity and some cash for real estate investing, and it also included moving into a space with new energy that had more open spaciousness and was in another part of town that I just craved and my family was on board with.
Speaker 2:
So that was a really cool thing, and we've seen people sell their homes in the suburbs and move into a condo in the city that maybe they're renting to see. Oh, I just want to see if I might enjoy living in this hip part of the city that's nearby that I really don't go to anymore because I've gotten so used to my suburban life that, even though the city is 20 minutes away, it's rare that we get in there and we go check out all the restaurants. And I've heard people Beth, I don't know if we have talked about this, but I've heard people who've moved into Boston who are just raving about how they're trying new restaurants all the time and they're walking everywhere all of a sudden and it's changed their life and they may not decide to stay there forever and for right now it's fun and they can work from there and maybe they stay there for a year and then maybe they go live on the West Coast for a while and see how they like that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's great you know there's so much to be said, christine for people doing this at a stage where they're healthy, so they can go walk the streets and they can go check out all the cool things to do. And another benefit is that is that your grown children really love to visit you in these places too. You know, I think there's so much nostalgia. You talked about as like coming home right, and that is a beautiful thing, but really what you're coming home to is family, right? It's about the people. It's about the people, and I think it's exciting for grown children, adults, to visit you in places that are fun.
Speaker 1:
Like I know that my sister's done this and last year I got to go and all of her children got to go out and visit her in California while she was living out there and they had a blast and so, yeah, you get to see everybody still, and it's just in a new place.
Speaker 2:
Exactly Love that, I would, you know. We've talked also about people who are buying a second home and spending time at that second home, where they're actually spending six months out of the year at another location and then maybe they're renting it out there Airbnb and while they're not there and then they're, they've downsized to a smaller place in their hometown because they just don't need that big place anymore. And, yeah, do they miss it when the kids come home, maybe? But we also talk to people who are taking their kids on a vacation or going and spending Christmas in Vermont or in California or Hawaii, because they've sold their house, they've downsized and they have the availability, they have the access to the resources to take their family on a trip now instead, instead of everybody coming back home to the same place. So it really is about the people and it's about the memories and the intentionality of the holidays. And you know we talked to you about the stuff. And what will I do with the stuff if?
Speaker 1:
I downsize that, I move. That's the next big issue, right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about that too.
Speaker 2:
I mean, sometimes it's just overwhelming to think about packing up a big house and moving on from it, and there's a lot of options and for I will say this, especially for the women you can allow yourself to be supported. There are a lot of people that love to pack, they love to organize, they love to help you declutter, they love to help you take your memories and turn them into memory books. So, instead of dragging around your kids portfolios of art projects for years and years more, when really the kids aren't interested in all of that, you're lugging it around, and how often are you truly looking at it? Pick a few pieces, put it in a portfolio, or hire someone to do that for you a scrapbook, and then enjoy that. Put that on your coffee table so then you can see it all the time.
Speaker 2:
Or, like I love what you were saying, beth, about one way to keep some older items is in the terms of Christmas tree ornaments, so that every year you get to take a look. Oh my gosh, remember when you were in kindergarten. You look like this and you do this picture and this note to me on the back of it, it's so sweet right, and know that really evolution is remembering the memories and moving forward.
Speaker 2:
And like, listen, I just moved in. I had a child who was going to college right after our move and she's my most nostalgic one. She did not want us to move and now that we've moved and she went off to college two months later and she's home right now for Christmas break, she's really okay with it and it was a little bit of adversity in her life. Yes, and if that's like one of the biggest adversity moments that she has as a child, she's doing really well and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, exactly Exactly, and there's so many great businesses. I've seen people take old trophies in medallions like that you win in races and what have you and create a piece of art out of it like a wall art. So you can take someone's you know all those ugly, big, heavy trophies and pull a couple of pieces from them, and so there's people that do that. There are people, there are businesses you can hire to come in, and we have a person locally here that's terrific with helping you get organized and taking care of things that need to be thrown away, helping you sell what can be sold and donate what can be donated.
Speaker 1:
There are some amazing companies that I've become very close with the people of when they you know some, even the junk removal company we use. He's the most empathetic and kind man. He's so great. He listens to the story about how wonderful that dining room table, that nobody in the family wants the dining room set, how many memories you had there, and he promises that he'll try to find a new family. It might end up in the trash, we don't know, but he he just does a really nice job with it.
Speaker 1:
And so letting go of some of those items, I totally get it. It's hard and and then you know you don't have to let go of all of them. Somebody was just asking me the other day about American girl dolls. So put them in a bin, put them in a bin by a nice bin and put them aside for your grandchildren. And wouldn't that be a nice thing. Someday, whether maybe your kids, maybe you have a Cape House that your grandchildren come down to and visit you, and wouldn't it be fun to have a bin of your, their parents, their moms, old American girl dolls to play with?
Speaker 1:
There's something that's really, really important to you. Nobody's saying that you have to throw it away, but you don't need every piece of artwork from the first grade and, and if you think about it rationally, people like I can't believe I'm sitting in this house because of that stuff. It's really, and it's Christine, it's real, it's a big thing. I've seen people hold off moving for four, five, six years at a time because they can't get themselves to part with their stuff in their house, and so you know. Going back to your original question is you know really what's what's holding you back? If it's that stuff, really put some thought to that. There's a great book called the Life Changing the life. Yeah, marie Kondo, right Of tidying up the life changing. It's a great book to read. If that's what's really holding you back, grab that book. You know Google it, go on to YouTube, but there's videos on YouTube. I think there's a Netflix series, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
And the whole, the whole premise is really looking at an item and asking yourself does this bring me joy? And asking yourself really, is it the item or is it the memory, and is it something, something that's in your heart, that is always going to be there, and how is that keeping you from living your dream life in a bigger way? So I think that's a really, really interesting and great point that you bring up and I just love the idea of you know, allowing yourself to be supported as you think about what you really want. Allow yourself to hire the organizer to come in to help you streamline, and we can do that, and we can do that.
Speaker 1:
If you're local, we can do all of that for you.
Speaker 2:
We have all of those contacts and we can do that, and we have a network yeah, we have a network across the country of people now that can also do that as well who can help you find the right resources. And I just want to say, too, that a lot of times, people will say, well, I'm really nervous about putting my house on the market because it really is outdated and I've got some old stuff in here and I really feel like I should do, and they have a laundry list of things they think they need to do before they can list it. And I want to say that a lot of times, that list is a lot longer than it needs to be. And that's another area where you can allow yourself to be supported and bring people in to help you check things off the list. And that's exactly something we talk about this in our seller's guide that we just put together, this beautiful bound booklet that, if you work with us, we will give you a copy of, and we will completely set you up for selling your house to let you know what are the things that you want to do and where can you get the most value, and we'll walk through these houses with you.
Speaker 2:
I mean, you're talking to two people that know how to create value in your home. We've done it with more houses than I. Can count on two hands between the two of us, and we know what sells, so we can tell you what's going to make a difference and what doesn't. And if you've got a place that is in need of an update and you need support with that, we can help you with that too. We know how people love to buy places sometimes that are not fully up to date, because they want to do the work themselves, and so we'll talk to you about your unique situation, but the whole point is not to feel overwhelmed. You're not alone. We're here to support you. We are a phone call or a DM away from just having this conversation with you, because we love to do it, and it's something that is a big part of our philosophy and how we think about this whole wealth building through real estate game.
Speaker 1:
You got it. You got it. So when we talk about you know part of the reason why we're talking about this in such great length around selling your home and what's holding you back whether it's you don't think you have a place to go or the overwhelm of doing it is because the market is craving more listings. And just to give you a couple of stats around the town that we live in, here on the East Coast, just outside of Boston Since 2020, we've seen a growth in the median price of over 17%, and in 2020, the town sold over 350 homes and just in 2023 alone, there's there were only 207 sales. So there's a significant decline in the number of properties sold, while there's been a significant increase in price, especially from 2020 to 2021 and into 2022. Last year, the increase was a lot lower it was only 1%. The most of that growth happened around COVID, when people decided, I think, to say hey, why am I sitting here, stuck in this house? There's so much I want to do. Now that I've been stuck here, I've had time to think and clear the brain. Geez, I really want to see the world now that the doors are open. So it's really. Those staff are for our town, but they're very, very consistent across the country.
Speaker 1:
Last year we saw some growth, but not the significant growth we'd seen over time. We saw it Obviously. We saw interest rates increase, and so people were sitting on low interest rates saying I don't want to move because I have this, this really low interest rate, which is kind of a funny reason to stay in a place that maybe you don't want to be in, especially when you could go rent for a year while rates come down and buy at another time. Or buy a home and then refinance, refinance. We're going to come down. So we see this big trend of the decrease in number of transactions while all the while, the buyer demand is cranking up and cranking up, and cranking up, and so 2024 is positioned to be a tremendous year for sellers.
Speaker 1:
You have a lot of buyers If you think that the number of transactions have declined in such a big way. All those people still need housing. They're still wanting to maybe get a bigger home or find you know, come into a new community or get nearer to school that they want to put their kids in. That demand doesn't go away because interest rates go up.
Speaker 2:
Right, that demand is still there.
Speaker 1:
And with the, with the significant decline in the number of transactions, that's just ripe for saying, okay, you have a, you have a product that people want and you're sitting on it? For what reason? Because you had a good, a low interest rate, because you don't know what to do with your stuff, because you think you have to buy another home that's just smaller, in that same community, when there's so many possibilities, there's so many cool things you could do and there's so much support that we can offer you and helping you get organized and downsize your stuff and put stuff into storage so it's still there when you, you know you decide to maybe buy a home in the mountains or on the beach or someplace else. So, right, right, exactly, is the motivation we're hoping that we're hearing the motivation here from you and what's important to you? But maybe you're the type of person gets motivated by numbers and knowing that, geez, the ability for you to sell at a profit is probably as good as it's ever going to be.
Speaker 2:
Right, exactly, and I think to proximity and who you spend time with is going to impact how you think about this. So I would just encourage you to seek out like-minded people If you're thinking about selling your home and renting and you want to talk to other people who have done the same thing, because I think that a lot of times there's a lot of reassurance and just knowing who are those people and how did they do it. We know a lot of people like that. Just send us a DM, we'll talk to you ourselves, we'll put you in touch with people. We're creating community all the time, so we have community of investors. If you want to invest, we do a monthly investor coffee. You can come join us at that coffee.
Speaker 2:
I know that there's people already who aren't investors, who've come to those coffees, who leave inspired and feeling like, oh my gosh, I didn't know you could do that, I didn't know there were women out there who are full-time investors or who are buying multiple properties with 10 doors. So everything becomes normalized once you surround yourself with people who are doing things that way. Then the other thing I just said the word normalized and it just reminded me that normal is broken the way that we've been doing things forever is rapidly changing. If you don't feel this already, you're probably living under a rock, because AI is changing everything the way that college works, and people talking about they're saying that in the future, 50% of companies are not going to require a bachelor's degree. The world is changing quickly and it is a vastly different world than, say, our parents' world when they were our age, which really was just a generation ago. So I think we get to think about things.
Speaker 2:
I mean, my husband and I were just talking about we were at a wonderful Spanish restaurant last night eating tapas and remembering how we had seen this episode of House Hunters where people were living on the coast of Spain and it was very reasonable and it was so beautiful and we said, oh yeah, we get to look into that.
Speaker 2:
We get to look into what would it be like to buy a place in another country or even just go live there for a while and see what it would be like. The world is much more open and I know for me, joining a group of fellow women who were doing big things, that's what initially opened my eyes to normalizing renting as an adult with kids and who's established and who's doing well financially, that renting's not just for people that don't have enough money yet to buy a home. So I think you get to look at where am I spending time. A lot of people this new year are saying like are the groups that I'm in, are the places I'm going serving me? This is a great one to think about. Who do you want to surround yourself and set your intentions, and those people will just start you'll start to magnetize other people who are in the situations that you want to be in.
Speaker 1:
A hundred percent. And Christine, we started this podcast off one of our first episodes. We talked about questioning the status quo, living your rich life now, and it's the way we do everything. It's the way we talk about real estate investing. It's the way we've managed our own money through using life insurance as a way to access your money. Now you think about that same topic around just regular investing and how we've just been told for years and years you need to have a 401k and you need to have a 529 plan, only to find out maybe a 529 plan is not a great idea because it's great to save for college, but maybe there's other ways to do that by using properly structured life insurance.
Speaker 1:
So I think I love the idea of surrounding yourself with people that are questioning the status quo and that are having success and maybe taking a little bit of a different approach.
Speaker 1:
And one of the things in the past year, since we've had this business the abundant investor one of the best things is being able to talk to so many people that are doing so many really fun and cool things, and now in having relationships with them and having our network stretch across the country so we can talk to people in other parts of the country that are seeing, maybe their ability to buy in a short-term rental in Texas, for example, because the cost of living is a lot less and the home prices are a lot less. Maybe that's a great place to invest, where in New England it's a little bit more challenging, perhaps if you're going to be investing, say, on Cape Cod, where the median price is going to be a lot higher. So it's been so tremendous for us to think of, to expand a horizons in talking to people that have a different way of looking at things, that live in different parts of the country. But I think the equalizer there is that we are looking to live our rich life now and willing to expand our mindset.
Speaker 2:
Right, exactly, and not put it off, because you never know, tomorrow's not promised, and I think there's something to be said for planning for what we want and living for today and living in the moment, and so it's a balance, and that's really what we strive to do to be able to be living our rich lives now and later 100%.
Speaker 1:
So if you're listening and you haven't followed us yet, we'd invite you to follow us on Instagram at the Abundant Investor. You can always visit our website that's going to have a lot more detail around what we're doing and how to connect with us, and that's just the AbundantInvestorcom and we will put a link here. If you want to spend a few minutes with us and talk about what do I do to get started whether it's real estate investing or maybe you're motivated now to downsize and sell that big home it doesn't matter what part of the country you're in. We can help you, whether we work with you here locally or we connect you with a like-minded agent in another part of the country.
Speaker 2:
Amazing. So thank you for joining us everyone. Happy new year. We look forward to spending 2020 for with you and we can't wait to talk to you again next week.