Buy or Sell in California?

 

The struggle in buying a home in California is real especially now because buying homes in California has become very competitive due to inventory shortages. Since the competition has grown it’s easier to sell. Properties are selling like hot cakes. However, this shouldn’t intimidate you into buying a house in this beautiful state and here is why.

The president of Local Market Monitor, Ingo Winzer, stated, “… at Local Market Monitor we’re forecasting that prices in all California markets will rise over the next three years.” This means the costs of properties are only going to go higher. There is a continuous fluctuation that has been analyzed where prices rise and drop each year which concludes this fluctuation will increase each year. So, if you have enough money to buy a property in California, now is the time to do it!

Sure, California is expensive, but it also depends in the areas you’re looking. For example, if you’re looking towards the LA and Bay area then yes, it is going to be expensive. The LA and Bay area have already gone above the 15 percent threshold for over-pricing when compared to an average home price along with the income price (Winzer, 2018). These aren’t the only cities that have sky rocketed. There’s 5 out of 15 cities in California where home prices are sky rocketing; there’s Glendale, Irvine, San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Fremont. In San Jose, the median list prices increased 23 percent,. That’s about a $184,000 dollar increase (Elkins, 2018). However, there are places that are affordable such as Palmdale, Lancaster, & San Bernardino. These may not be the most attractive places to look at but as mentioned earlier, the market is hot. Available land has become expensive and competitive since there’s not much land or properties to buy.

We have seen many cons when it comes to buying in California such as high costs, scarcity, and complexity. However, there are many pros when buying in California as well. When you buy land in California you have complete control over what you put in. Also, a new renovated home won’t convey health hazards such as mold or asbestos. The resale value in California is good too. New homes usually hold a greater value, make a better impression, and usually come with a warranty (Grijalva, 2017). However, for an older home this can vary depending on the cost of maintenance and remodeling. And lastly, there’s the emotional satisfaction of buying or building your own home in the sunny state of California.

Therefore, to answer the given questions, should I sell in California? Yes, because it will be successful due to the scarcity of available properties. Should I buy in California? The answer is also yes, because now is the time to buy. There’s more competition meaning people are willing to pay more. So if you don’t act fast, the price of the house you hope drops might go higher and you might lose your opportunity to get it.

Sources: 1, 2, 3

Keeping a Healthy Lifestyle when Constantly Busy with Work

Work is important but so is your health. Many people find it difficult to balance work while keeping a healthy lifestyle, but it’s not as hard as it seems. There are three things that sync together to help you maintain a healthy lifestyle: your nutritional health, physical health, and mental health. Keeping a healthy lifestyle makes you feel good, which can influence the way you work or the way you feel.

Nutritional Health. When it comes to your diet it’s always important to know what you’re consuming. There are many alternatives when it comes to choosing food. It’s not always easy though, it’s hard letting go of those fatty delicious snacks such as the spicy, tasty Hot Cheetos but it’s not impossible. Choose healthier alterations such as fruits or healthy nutrition bars. Try to make a schedule for your meals. For some people meal prepping works. For others, nutritional apps, such as My Fitness Pal, work as well; find out what works for you. Make sure to drink plenty of water throughout the day and lay off those sugary substances such as soda and energy drinks. Plus, you don’t need those anyways, drink coffee like any normal, sophisticated person just make sure to choose the right kind sweetener. Also, when you’ve done such a good job in eating healthy it’s okay to have a cheat day; however, don’t make this cheat day continuously because it defeats the purpose of maintaining a healthy diet.

Physical Health. Sometimes tasks at work consume most of your time, and by the time you’re off, you’re too tired to do anything else. However, it’s good to do some physical activity to release some stress and help strengthen your body.  According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services “Less than 5% of adults participate in 30 minutes of physical activity each day; only one in three adults receive the recommended amount of physical activity each week.” To change these statistics, here are a few tips to stay physically active as you manage work: try to park farther away so you can have a longer walk when walking to your job. You can always go on a walk during your lunch break or when you’re finally off work. It’s hard to get stuff done as you’re working, so it’s best to do your physical activity before or after work. Join a gym and seek advice from the fitness experts, go for a jog at a park, find an activity you enjoy and do it more often, whether it’s riding your bike or playing tennis with a friend. Simple things like that can help you be stronger, more active, and less stressed. So, when you go home after being physically active, you can eat a good healthy home-cooked meal, relax, get some sleep and be up and ready the next day.

Mental Health. To be physically strong you need to be mentally strong. If you enter work and think “Oh, its Monday, everyone hates Mondays. I need to deal with my boss and coworkers. I just want to go home and eat and sleep and not deal with anyone” you are already coming in to work with a negative perspective which can ruin your whole day. The same thing goes for being healthy and managing work, “Oh it’s a Monday and I have a lot of work to do, I don’t have time to exercise because by the time I’m off I’m too tired.”  No, it shouldn’t be like that it should be more like, “It’s a Monday. Let’s see how much I can get done before my workout, so I can look good when I go to the beach on Friday.” This is a better attitude. What I’m basically trying to say is that if you put your mind to something you can do it. You just have to be mentally in it to win it. And I get it. It’s hard sometimes which is why you need to mentally encourage yourself and challenge yourself. Ways you can encourage yourself is by treating yourself for something you’ve accomplished. For example, if you ran a mile every day for two weeks, treat yourself by buying yourself new jogging shoes. Simple things like that encourage you to keep on going.

Therefore, don’t let work get in the way from helping you maintain a healthy lifestyle. Follow these tips and they’ll help you have a better nutritional, physical, and mental health which all sync into creating a healthier lifestyle for you.

Work Smarter, Not Harder!

It’s hard keeping track of many tasks when you’re all over the place; and let’s face it, a day isn’t enough time to tackle them all. It’s hard enough to wake up every morning, go to work, feed your dog, face traffic, answer calls, catch up on emails, attend appointments, schedule appointments, boss people around, remember you have a family, smile, and breathe. It’s all too much work! What to do? What to do? I might have exaggerated a little bit, but to be honest all this becomes a serious issue because people tend to work in a way that might inconvenience them. Something that can help a person work smarter not harder is the Triple R Method that stands for Reduce, Re-use, and Re-boot.

Let’s begin! It’s always good to create a to do list. For example, I use an app called Wunderlist to help remind me of what tasks I need to tackle. However, having too many tasks can be mentally exhausting. And like every business person says time is money. So, what are you going to do?! Well the smart thing to do is REDUCE your work load by prioritizing the 5 most important tasks. This will help you gain a better focus on getting things done and once you’re done with the important tasks you could then move on to the less urgent tasks. Also, focus on the things you accomplish in a day rather than the time you spend on it. This will help your productivity grow in better results, instead of trying to get something done faster but it comes out poorly. Most people procrastinate but this can be used to an advantage when imposing shorter deadlines on a task. When it comes to getting work done more efficiently, it is important to create routines and habits which reduces the amount of decisions you must make in a day. Tony Schwartz, the president of the CEO of The Energy Project in the Harvard Business Review stated, “The counterintuitive secret to getting things done is to make them more automatic, so they require less energy.”

Another way to work smarter is by taking advantage of the new technology we have. It’s 2018, time to upgrade. For example, instead of making new accounts for each device you own create a google account which allows you to RE-USE the same account in any other device whether it’s a phone, tablet, computer, or laptop while also keeping all your work saved so you can continue where you left off. Communication is key! It’s always good to network with people and make yourself known. This helps with strengthening your communication and collaboration skills. This could easily be done through social media to represent yourself and your company. In this generations 81 percent of the population uses social media. There’s Facebook, Linked In, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. all these apps are a great way to network with clients reach out to this new generation. For example, you can always re-post or re-tweet someone’s post to show your interest in a topic. Overall this is a good way to advertise who you are and what you or your company is about. It’s okay to re-use the same post in different media platforms because maybe someone might miss it on Facebook but see it on twitter. Also, when it comes to communicating, make sure to keep it short and straight to the point. It avoids static when you’re trying to get a message across.

Last but not least, you should Re-boot yourself! Stress is a very common factor for a hard worker like yourself. This can create a downwards slope for your health and energy. Believe it or not, sleep is a huge important step to maintaining your wellbeing. I know what you might be asking, “What’s Sleep?”, well according to Webster’s Dictionary sleep is “the natural periodic suspension of consciousness during which the powers of the body are restored.” Yes, it restores/re-boots you so you can wake up the next morning have a good breakfast and have more productivity in work. Also, multitasking isn’t always the answer. When you’re doing too many things at the same time it makes your brain struggle which can cause your brain to lose focus which can then lead to frustration and stress. You can prevent this by creating and sticking to a routine. Make a routine on your google calendar to keep you working productively and you can tackle the jobs that need to be done. Do this ahead of time so when you wake up re-booted, you already know what must be done.

To conclude, it is important to work smarter not harder. Whenever you get too caught up in your own work remember the Three R Method: Reduce, Re-use, Re-boot.

Sources 1, 2, 3