TITLE: Majority of Americans Regret Buying A Home; More Than Half In Worse Financial Shape
https://www.itemonline.com/news/majority-of-americans-regret-buying-a-home-more-than-half-in-worse-financial-shape/article_8245f05e-d51e-5821-859f-c09637818753.html
EXCERPT: There was a time when the American dream included owning a home, but that dream has become a nightmare for many. Buying a home was more stressful than 66% of first-time and 59% of recent buyers thought it would be. The sad thing is that the stress of buying the home did not pay off once the purchase process ended. The stress continued long after the ink on the paperwork had dried.
In fact, 52% of home buyers say that they have not gotten any happier since they purchased their home, and 20% say that they are less happy than they were before becoming homeowners.
The reason for this decrease in happiness? Unexpected costs. Twenty-six percent of new home buyers were surprised with costs they had not anticipated, and 56% feel like their home purchase has put them in a financial situation that is more than they can manage. For 1 in 4 home buyers, their overall financial status has declined, sometimes significantly, since they became homeowners.
However, the struggle to pay their mortgage on time each month is pulling homebuyers under. With 62% of homeowners reporting having difficulty making their monthly mortgage payments on time, it underscores the crisis in this current economic climate.
As homebuyers work harder and harder to juggle maintaining their lifestyle and paying their mortgage, their personal debt increases. A staggering 56% of recent home buyers have assumed additional debt, such as personal loans and credit cards, since they purchased their home. Many buyers even believe that their debt situation (29%) and overall financial situation (27%) have worsened. That’s led to a deterioration in their overall happiness (20%) and negatively impacted their relationships (19%).
TITLE: Survey Finds American Dream Still Alive Despite Inflation, Mortgage Rates
https://dsnews.com/news/11-27-2023/survey-finds-american
EXCERPT: According to a new survey from Falls & Co., a Cleveland-based real estate marketing and research firm, has found that 89.5% of millennials in their prime homebuying age (25-44) believe they can archive the American Dream of owning a home—while less than one percent said that owning a home was not important to them or financially possible.
While answers to the survey varied across the board, the number one reason to own a home was emotional rather than rational. Sixty-three percent said they want to own a home just because they like the idea of owning a home. A further 44% want to own a home as an investment to build wealth over time.
Big life events were also a key indicator of wanting to own a home; while numbers were not extravagant, 23% said getting married would be a reason to buy a home, and 20% said the birth of a child necessitated buying a home.
So, what are millennials searching for? Primarily, 76% of millennials are searching for a detached single-family home, while 3.6% desired a condominium, 8.6% preferred an apartment, and only 3.7% desired (or could afford) to move into a mansion.
What else were millennials looking for? They want their commute to be reasonable, which typically means living closer to city centers. This desire was followed by the number of bedrooms the home has, then the square footage of not just the home, but the property it is built on.
The least thing millennials agreed on that they looked for in a house was curb appeal. Energy efficiency—and to an extent, smart home devices—also placed surprisingly low among the list of wants, due to the fact that millennials have grown up with technology against a backdrop of energy related issues.
The survey also revealed that millennials also do not want to put much “sweat equity” into their homes meaning they are not considering “fixer-uppers” as viable alternatives. Just 16% are interested in a fixer-upper. Thirty-two percent want a move-in ready home. Twenty-four percent want a home that needs only minor cosmetic repairs. And 13% prefer to buy new.
Also, just 23% said they would want their home to be in a rural area, compared to 40% who prefer the suburbs and 31% who want to live in or close to a city. Those ages 35-39 were the most likely to want a home in or close to a city (41.2 %).
TITLE: The New American Dream In 3 Easy Steps: Become A Whistleblower, Call The SEC, Cash In
https://dealbreaker.com/2023/11/the-new-american-dream-in-3-easy-steps-become-a-whistleblower-call-the-sec-cash-in-
EXCERPT: The SEC made its first whistleblower award in 2012, so the program has been available for quite some time. The novel deluge of whistleblower tips could be attributable to an increase in securities fraud, an expanding awareness of the whistleblower program, or a heightened desire among would-be whistleblowers to collect on the increasingly massive awards being handed out. With the average eligible whistleblower walking away more than $5 million richer, there is certainly an adequate incentive to report even in run-of-the-mill cases.
Actually, becoming a millionaire whistleblower is kind of a good modern take on the American dream. The whistleblower program is available to nonemployees with qualifying information, but surely a good proportion of SEC whistleblowers are workers who don’t feel like years of loyalty to their employers has been repaid in kind (whistleblower anonymity is protected, making it difficult to know for sure). It has just got to feel good though to do the right thing legally, stick it to the boss, and get well-paid all at the same time.
Maybe a better career trajectory than the traditional one is to climb the corporate ladder just high enough to see where the fraud is and then get in touch with the SEC. It’s a bit of a long shot — only a tiny fraction of those 18,000 tips received in fiscal year 2023 will lead to whistleblower awards. Still, there are mostly only upsides, as even whistleblowers who do not ultimately qualify for an award receive protections against retaliation.
So, if you’re aware of securities-related misconduct — anything from a public company issuing a material misstatement to a colleague running a Ponzi scheme down the hall — consider getting in touch with the SEC. It just might pay off.