babyboomers: 10 Things California Baby Boomers Need to Know About Helping Their Kid Buy a House - 01/13/11 06:16 AM
We baby boomers have always been a headstrong bunch of pioneers, and nothing about that is going to change until the last one of us is in our grave.
Here in California, we boomers seem to have this horrible recurring nightmare: the price of buying real estate is so high that our kids either become permanent renters or (gasp!) move to one of those "cheaper" states to raise our grand kids.
Wait. That isn't a dream. That was reality only a few years back! 
And it will be over our collective dead bodies that we let that dream become a reality again.
Not happening.
We would much … (15 comments)

babyboomers: Economic Cancer: That Sense of "Entitlement" - 10/23/09 04:01 AM
When did we start to feel entitled?
In the Depression of the 1930's, the jobless father of 4 asked the farmer if he could work on the farm for a day in exchange for food to feed his family.
In the Depression of 2010 do we just take the food from the farmer because, after all, you and your family are entitled to eat?
Are we:
Entitled to a life better than our parents had?
Entitled to own real estate?
Entitled to dis-own real estate?
Entitled to be bailed out?
Entitled to a job?
Entitled to health care? And to social … (67 comments)

babyboomers: My Pre-Internet Buying Experience: So SLOW. So STUPID. So Amazing that ANYONE Bought a House - 09/01/09 07:54 AM
My husband and I were moving back to California in one month and I was desperate.
I was not a real estate agent or a mortgage person in those days. I was just somebody who had sold her Dallas house, and was R-E-A-D-Y to buy.
No one "researched properties" in those days.  How could you? You did what I did. You got on a plane and flew into town. Then you found yourself an agent.
Every buyer had to rely on information that was kept under lock and key by the real estate profession in those days.  The list of properties for sale only appeared in … (9 comments)

babyboomers: 3-2-1- LIFTOFF! Prevent Failure to Launch: Help Your Kid Buy A House This Year - 04/27/09 10:25 AM
It wasn't THAT long ago that we Baby Boomers worried a lot about our kids.
You know, those irrepressible Generation Y kids who were on the Internet at age 4 and who grew up clicking (my son says I grew up turning dials and that is why his generation is superior different).
Sitting on our own fat bubble- enhanced, low taxed properties, we watched prices spiral out of control here in the San Francisco Bay Area. We believed our children would either:
Never be able to afford a house Move away forever Move back in with us (eek!)  But post meltdown, … (68 comments)

babyboomers: Beyond McMansions and SUV's : The TOP TEN Changes Coming to California - 05/18/08 05:10 AM
Here in California, we will be winding down this decade with a new sense of ECONOMIC AWARENESS and ENVIRONMENTAL SENSITIVITY. We are a little older.  We are a lot wiser.
Perhaps we are a little battered and a little bruised from all those issues that ended with the word "CRISIS". But hey, as they always say, "As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation". 
Stay tuned and watch closely. We are already figuring things out here on the West Coast. As always, we evolve. We adapt. The NEXT BIG THING is only around the corner.
But guess what? The NEXT BIG THING is THE NEXT SMALL THING. We're ditching … (25 comments)

babyboomers: Profoundly Paperless: When Did Paper Become Socially Unacceptable? - 02/19/08 02:52 AM
"What is this Big Box, Grandpa?"
"Oh, that? That's a file cabinet. We used to store papers in it."
"Grandpa, what's paper?"
Okay, I know we've been slinging the word "paperless" around for years. Then we snickered, went back to our desks piled with paper, laughed when our clients had to sign enough paperwork that "killed 10 trees" and dare I say it? Scribbled reminder notes to ourselves on little pads of paper then stuck them on things.
But the whole paperless thing is gaining momentum, and there are signs everywhere. Time moves faster than you think. 
 My own son simply refused to believe me when he … (10 comments)

babyboomers: The Stairway to Heaven Needs a Ramp - 10/14/07 09:37 AM
Caught in a time warp between their kids finally finishing college and their elderly parents needing help, is that huge bulge in the population known as THE BABYBOOMERS. Although it remains to be seen how their retirement will change the face of our economy, I can tell you one thing for certain: They do not want 2 story houses with STAIRS.
Friday night, as my friends and I sat around the fire, listening to gently falling rain and sipping wine, the conversation (as usual) drifted towards real estate.  My friends, like so many others their age, are exasperated in their quest to buy real estate. 
Here was their RANT: "Where the hell are all the … (51 comments)