COVID-19 Impact on the Housing Market – You Might Be Surprised
July 15th Tax Extension Deadline is Next Week
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS postponed the original tax filing deadline from April 15th to July 15th. July 15th is also the deadline for making first and second quarter estimated payments for 2020. You also have until the 15th to contribute to your IRA or health savings accounts for the 2019 tax year.
This is the is the last weekend before the deadline to finish gathering documents and preparing your taxes to meet the deadline. If you’re unable to meet the deadline, you can file for an extension to push your tax date to October 15th. That form, along with any IRS documents and information you may need, can be found at IRS.gov.
An Online Furniture Shopping Newbie
I don’t do a lot of online shopping unless its for a product I’ve purchased before or from a retail store I’m familiar with and trust. Buying groceries online, a t-shirt from Nordstrom or replacing a kitchen item from Amazon is a safe bet. I’ve never made a significant online purchase like furniture.
Replacing the ottoman in front of my sofa with something more contemporary and more sturdy has been on my list for some time. A glass of red wine sitting on a tray on an upholstered ottoman is a disaster waiting to happen, especially when you have a dog. With working and spending more time at home in recent months, and maybe drinking wine more regularly, the physical and visual issues of the ottoman have been more noticeable.
Welcome to Wayfair – there are so many choices. After extensive research (probably to much) I parked several glass coffee tables in my shopping cart to ponder. I finally selected a table that checked all the boxes – not too large, contemporary, glass top and interesting style. When I was finally ready to to push the “purchase” button, I was delighted to find it was on sale for the Memorial Day holiday weekend sale. Awesome!
The table arrived a few weeks ago. It was easy to assemble and it’s perfect! Fits the space exactly as expected, the glass top visually makes the room feel larger, it’s a nice update to the room and its a more stable spot for a glass of wine. Couldn’t be happier. I’ve been thinking about new bedroom nightstand lamps . . . there could be another online shopping success story in my future.
Robin Myers is a condominium specialist with Windermere Real Estate/East, Inc.
Can We Expect to See More Entry Level Affordable Housing In the Future?
This week Matthew Gardner, Chief Economist for Windermere Real Estate, discusses housing affordability and what we can expect moving forward. On average median housing prices nationwide are have increased by 23.5% above the 2008/2009 recession. While there has been some impact on values due to COVID-19, high demand from buyers in a market with limited inventory will continue to increase prices. What’s the solution? There’s high demand for entry level housing, but there’s no easy answer as to how to create affordability.