
The Condo Market Now / Moving Abroad
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Clark Howard
It's great to have you here on the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. And you may or may not be aware that the condo market is going its own way separate from the single family home or townhome market in the country, especially along the coasts around the country. And this creates opportunity with possible hazard, likely hazard if you are interested in being a buyer when there's far more sellers than there are buyers. And speaking of moving, do you know that more and more Americans, millions now, have moved overseas? What's that about? What's that do for you and your financial security? Talk about that later. So the condo market is in a slump like it's not been since the end of the banking scandals in the Great Recession. Condo sellers, if they have to sell, are having to take what the marketplace will pay them. And in a lot of places it's like, where's the floor on those values? A lot of other conditions. Condo owners who don't have to sell but would like to put a unit on the market sits and sits and sits. Maybe the only offers they get are these low ball offers. They say, well, we're just going to keep our place for now. And there are a number of factors that are part of this. And I've talked about over the years how the way people buy condos is exactly backwards from what economics would say. Over time, you look longer periods of time, you'll see that condos and homes rise at pretty much the same percent over time. But in short cycles, condos ratchet up and down much more than houses do in value. Because the condo market, you're not just marrying that unit, you're marrying that building and buildings take on kind of a life of their own and a value of their own. And the condo markets had unusual forces at play that have made it more volatile recently and more to the down recently than what goes on in the housing market, the general housing market. And I won't belabor the points because I've made them in the past in different ways. But the insurance risk for a condo association being able to insure the shortage of reserves at condos in Florida, as an example, the law requiring a plan for maintenance and repair and then catch up on the fees with huge increases. So a lot of condos have had deferred maintenance. That's a fancy term for like when you in your own house, you should have replaced the roof, but you didn't, you should have repainted, but you haven't, you should have repaired this or that or the other, and you didn't. And a condo, you're all in it together. And the fees that pay for a lot of the things have been going up, up, up and away. So the condo market is going to find a new level, a new price level, then it will hit its bottom. Don't know when that's going to be, and then it starts going back up. So I want you to know that there is real opportunity right now if you got your eyes wide open because you have to account for the total cost, what that condo fee is going to be, what the taxes are going to be, what the insurance you have to pay, because a lot of the insurance is for the building comes through the condo fee, what all those things are. And so you got to figure out if that good price overall, when you add everything together is a good deal. And there are lots of deals out there, and you're buying at a good cycle, you're buying at a good time in the cycle because of the weakness of the market. And people that don't have to sell and are deciding they're just hang in there, eventually the market recovers and you'll be okay, but in the meantime, you'll have been paying all those taxes, the fees, all the rest. And you have to decide, is it better just to cut your losses and get out or do you want to be patient and wait for recovery? But the condo thing is kind of a unique thing. And the insurance market in general has been a passive player in so much in the past and just calculates risk and quotes you a premium. But what we're going to see more and more is pricing signals from the market or imposition of requirements from insurers where there are so many things we can do that will lower the risk for an insurer of insuring our home or our condo or whatever, and we've not been about that in the U. S. I talked two years ago about how the state of Alabama on the coast region by the Gulf of Mexico had put in place very strict building standards and is, as best I know, the only coastal region in the United States that doesn't have an insurance problem or a premium problem because the building standards are designed to reduce the risk for insurers. That's the kind of thing we've got to think about in the housing market. Not just condos, but with houses as well. How do we reduce the risk to us and to the insurance industry? Because the insurance industry is both a bad guy a lot of times and also a messenger. Don't shoot the messenger. Listen to the message that the risk that you're creating is one that nobody in their right mind would want to take on as an insurer.
Krista
Okay, Ann in Vermont sent this question in what's the best way to buy a house when you already own one? I'm 55. I plan to move probably in the late spring. I know ideally it's best to buy and sell at once so you don't need any loans, but I don't want to count on that timing all working out. And honestly, it would be less stressful to move into a new place first. My current house is paid for and I will hopefully be downsizing. I live in an expensive market and will be trying to keep the cost under $600,000 if possible. And I expect my current house is worth about 700,000. I'll have about 150,000 available in savings and money markets by the time this comes around for a down payment. I've read online about HELOCs and bridge loans and borrowing against 401ks and getting a new mortgage and various other options. I have excellent credit. What's the smartest way to plan for this and what options allow you to pay them off almost immediately? Because I would want to do that once I sold my current house. And side note, a short term rental in between would be tough as the rental market here is insane.
Clark Howard
Okay, so let's talk about this. So you made it clear you want the stability of buying the new place before you've sold the old one. You want shorter term money, but with that you're going to have a lot of closing costs. Borrowing from the 401k is I don't recommend that as an option in this case because the amount of money involved. So I want you to approach two things. One, mortgage brokers and you just tell them you're going to need short term money for buying the new home and when your old home sells, you're out. Or when you talk to a mortgage broker you say I want to look at low or no closing costs mortgages where you accept mortgage rate usually a half a point to 58 a point higher and you pay that higher interest rate for the period of time. But you don't pay a lot of the normal closing costs making taking out the loan a much more affordable option. The third thing is to go to a credit union near you in Vermont and see if they sell off their loans or they hold them in what's known as end portfolio, meaning many credit unions hold the loans on their own books and have a variety of loan products that would work for you that should be low cost for you to take out. And this would be a case where doing something I always talk against would be right. Looking at a 1 year, 5 year or 3 year ARM adjustable rate mortgage where it's a cheaper loan for you to take out because you're bearing the interest rate risk either year by year or after three years or after five. And so that's a lot of stuff to say all at once. But the real target in your case is controlling what it costs to get that loan closed. That that's your biggest expense that you want to avoid as much of as you can, not as much what the interest rate would be. You got to make sure the loan has no prepayment penalty which is where you have to pay fees based on paying off that loan extra early when your home does sell that you're in right now. So it's going to take a little bit of work some time, but you'll.
Krista
Get there all right. And Elaine in Virginia says Verizon's promoting a Verizon open back savings account. They offer a open a high yield savings account with open bank by Santander Bank. How legitimate and safe does this offer sound?
Clark Howard
Santander is one of the world's biggest banks I think is how you say it, Spanish. It's from Spain. Maybe they have branches around. They used to have branches in the United States I think as well. Anyway, so these things are. They're loyalty things for Verizon to offer that it creates another bond between you and Verizon. The accounts are fully federally insured and it's absolutely fine for you to use the Verizon savings account.
Krista
Stephen in Illinois is a man after your own heart. Clark. He says, I wear a Fitbit Charge 5 around my ankle, a Garmin Venue 2 Plus on my wrist. Smart ring, not an Aura one on my finger. Omron. Omron.
Clark Howard
I don't know.
Krista
BP 8,000 watts.
Clark Howard
They make blood pressure devices, so they must make a health tracker too.
Krista
Must be a blood pressure because BP 8000.
Clark Howard
Oh, so it is the blood pressure on the wrist.
Krista
The most accurate step count comes from the Fitbit on my wrist, but it's even better on my ankle. Everything else gets confused if I'm pushing a shopping cart or a lawnmower. So I'm a skeptic as to the accuracy of the Oura ring for steps as well. Can you clear the air on this accuracy issue?
Clark Howard
Sure. So I'm wearing three trackers right now. I have my aura health ring, I have my Samsung watch, and I have my Garmin fitness tracker. The one of the three that's really accurate on steps for me is Garmin. The Samsung is terrible. If I'm doing something working out inside or it seems even on a cloudy day, it doesn't do a very good job tracking steps. And I've never looked to see if or a track steps. If it does, I don't even know because I've been wearing a Garmin for so long, I can't even remember if it's 20 years now or something like that. I've been doing the Garmin tracking and it hassles me all the time. So, Krista, how many steps does the Garmin say I need to do today?
Krista
Well, don't you set that up yourself?
Clark Howard
No, it tells you, okay, that's what's different so much. All right, so it's 14, 930 steps is what it wants me to do today. Yesterday it was 15 something. And so far today I've only done 44.83. So it's been sending me electric shocks all day.
Krista
I have a friend who got a, I don't know which watch for Christmas and she's like, I don't like that. It tells me I should be moving or whatever. Like she was really annoyed by that.
Clark Howard
Oh, this one starts vibrating. The Garmin says, you're being too inactive. You need to get up and be active. And then if I do it, then it gives me like a, a double vibrate saying, thanks for getting out and being active. And so I would say that Fitbit and Garmin have so much history doing the fitness and running and all that that what you're Finding is probably true, by the way. I didn't even know. Oh, look. Have you ever seen Uranora Wearer? Have you ever seen. Does it track your steps?
Krista
It does, but I don't wear mine during the day.
Clark Howard
Oh.
Krista
I only wear it for sleeping.
Clark Howard
Oh. It's really happy with me with my sleeping right now. Says my average sleep score is an 84.
Krista
I actually took some time off from it and I just put it on the charger this morning because I am going to start wearing it again because it was depressing me because I thought I got more sleep than it said I did. And I was just like, enough of this. Like, you know, you think you wake up feeling great, and it's like you did not sleep well.
Clark Howard
Well, my wife Lane laughs at me because she says you don't know whether you slept well or not till Aura tells.
Krista
Right. And if you're gonna have a good day, you're like, you wake up. I feel good. And it's like, oh, your readiness score is terrible. You're like, wow, I'm not feeling well suddenly. What is wrong?
Clark Howard
You need to take a day of rest today. It'll say that. Yeah. Or were you upset about something last night? Did you eat late last night?
Krista
Maybe I wasn't upset about something. Maybe I should be.
Clark Howard
Yeah. So it's the. The CEO of Aura says if you start doing that, do exactly what Krista did. Put your aura and time out, take a break from it or any of these health rings. If you just become too obsessed, you got to put it aside for a while so it doesn't start running your. Your daily happiness by telling you what your daily health is. But I've loved it. And you know the weird thing? It's been. It's been two years and a month since I had my heart valve replacement operation. And in the summer and fall leading up to that operation or a new that my health was deteriorating. I could see it in the reports. And I mean, you look at the charts and I could see that my heart was failing, that my valve was failing. And I mean, it was clear as day is an indicator. So all it did was confirm with the heart surgeon told me was happening anyway. But as best I know, I'm doing okay.
Krista
You're doing great. Yeah.
Clark Howard
We'll see. Coming up ahead, what happens if your money says I can never retire? Let me tell you what more and more Americans are doing straight ahead.
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We all have moments when we could have done better. Like cutting your own hair. Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen. So now you look like a tomato.
Krista
Ouch.
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Could have done better. Like cutting your own hair. Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen. So now you look like a tomato.
Krista
Ouch.
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Coulda done better. Same goes for where you invest Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education and human help when you need it. Learn more@schwab.com.
Clark Howard
I know someone who is 60s. I don't know exactly what her age is, but somewhere around late 50s, early 60s and she has not been able to save a lot of money towards retirement and she has come to a decision that when she hits retirement age she's going to go live overseas and she's going to Central Europe where some of her family still lives. And she's going to live there because she says she can live there for 1/5 the cost, 1/5 of the cost of living in retirement in the United States. And one estimate I saw recently is there's now 4 million Americans who are living semi retired or retired outside the United States. And I saw an item recently in the Wall Street Journal that this is like a magnet right now for middle income Americans to move somewhere else. Historically from Texas to California, a lot of Americans have retired in various communities in Mexico and there are a lot of retiree American expat kind of neighborhoods and communities that are across Mexico. But that's just the tip of the iceberg because now Americans are going all over the place. Portugal has been a very popular spot for Americans to retire, but it's not any one place. It's all over the place. And it's because if you're one of the one in three people who what you really have to live on in retirement is just your Social Security. It's not enough to survive in the United States and that's leading more and more people to look not wanting to work the rest of your life which is, I hear people say that to me, well, you know, I've never been able to save, so I'm just going to have to work till I die. This is the escape hatch. This is the alternative. And it doesn't have to be that dire that you could never retire here, but you could retire somewhere, whatever there is, wherever that is. But there's something else as well. And this is what the Wall Street Journal story was about, that people who are middle income, who can retire but would have a lower standard of living and retirement here are choosing to go. They don't need to do it to retire, but they're choosing to go live somewhere else to have a better lifestyle. There are a lot of questions about how taxation would work, how safe a place is, how you get medical care when you need it. Because medical care is really variable within the United States. Think about how variable it might be depending on where you would go settle somewhere else in the world. My key rule, if you're ever thinking about this, is that you do not buy a place right off the bat that you go test the waters, even if there's a place you've gone to. Oh, let's say you vacation in Costa Rica over and over and over again and you love Costa Rica and you're thinking, I'm gonna live there when I retire, test drive it first in retirement as a renter. Because it's different when you go somewhere episodically a week at a time versus living there 52 weeks a year. And that's why you go test drive it and what you think you want may or may not be. And also if you rent first, you'll figure out where you really want to be and what Fair value is very hard to do that as somebody who even vacations somewhere regularly to know true fair value and where you'd really want to settle. Krista, if you could live anywhere on earth, you could not live in the United States anymore. Oh, you had to leave. Where would you go?
Krista
I don't know. That would be so hard to choose.
Clark Howard
Oh, I know. I know where I'd go.
Krista
I mean, I could think of a lot of places I'd love to live. Italy, I mean, South Africa was incredible. Australia is awesome. I don't know. I could live in a lot of places.
Clark Howard
Australia and a second.
Krista
Really?
Clark Howard
Australia is where my imagination is where I'd want to be.
Krista
Yeah, I guess. Imagination, I of course, think. Well, my kids, if they're my kids, are still in the US I don't read that far.
Clark Howard
You know, do you know that I can't move to Australia even if I wanted to, because Australia won't allow somebody who's older to move there because the health cost burden you might represent to them. Wow. So you can be there, you can go over and stay for like a season or something, but you can't move there under most circumstances once you hit a certain age and you have to do a medical background where they decide, nope, this one's out.
Krista
Oh wow.
Clark Howard
This one's okay. That one's not.
Krista
All right. Well, Clint in New York has a question for you. He says, I want to encourage my niece who is currently in junior high, to save money. My plan is to set up a joint savings account at a local bank or credit union, matching her contribution dollar for dollar. I know you've spoken about college savings plans, but who knows if she will even attend college six years from now?
Clark Howard
Okay.
Krista
The only catch is that she's not to withdraw one dime until she turns 18, at which time she is free to spend the money any way she wants or hopefully keep on saving. Many years ago, my father opened up a passbook savings account for me at a local bank. He provided some seed money and also paid me to do odd jobs around the house. I mowed neighbors lawns, shoveled sidewalks, sold vegetables out of our garden. My joy was depositing the hard earned money into my account and watching it grow. I remember graduating from college with $3,000 in the bank. My savings and investment trend continued throughout adulthood and I never thought I would accumulate this much money. What do you think of my plan to encourage my niece?
Clark Howard
I love it. I love it. Now let me first go back, double back to the 529. From a practical financial standpoint, the 529 would be great because now with the 529, if a child doesn't go to college, the money morphs tax free. You have to go through a process, but morphs tax free into a Roth ira. So you would give your niece an enormous opportunity for a head start towards financial independence later in life by the money not being needed for college grows tax free, then transitions tax free into a Roth, grows tax free, and then way down the road is spent tax free. So just from a financial standpoint, that is the best answer, but not necessarily the right answer in this case because you're trying to create a lifelong habit of living on less than what you make and seeing the advantage of of building up money over time. Today I'd say instead of a savings account for your niece, I Would if your niece is 13 in junior high, probably already 13. 13 to 17, you can open a youth account at Fidelity Investments. And so a 13 year old is given the ability to learn how to invest, has decent control over the account with you overseeing it and is able to invest instead of save and learns the principles of investing being able to put money in Fidelity zero funds that have no cost, the account has no cost. And teaching a teenager how investing works I think is invaluable. But doing what happened in your life with seeding money and savings and having it grow and then be theirs at 18, just like you talked about, that's great too. So I'd say you've got. This is like what was that show that used to have door number one, door number two, door number three. Is that called let's Make a Deal?
Krista
I think so.
Clark Howard
That's.
Krista
They also had that in the prices, right?
Clark Howard
Oh, I, you know, why am I even talking about game shows on tv? I know nothing. But the idea is there's more than one way to do this and I'd say all three of those would be great options.
Krista
Scott in Florida says the my Social Security website now only allows sign in from id me or login.gov. various sites on the Internet are critical of both for privacy reasons. What is your recommendation?
Clark Howard
So, gosh, I chose and I'm not a technology expert but I chose to do login.gov. i felt more comfortable with it and the protocols with it. But the reality is any site that you sign into, there's risk involved with it and hacks happening and all that. But it's important for you to have a My Social Security account just to make sure nobody is impersonating you and going after your Social Security money. And you can also check your your records to make sure you're being properly credited because your earnings over most of your working lifetime, 35 years I think it is establish what you're going to receive from Social Security based on the year that you decide to take it. So yeah, there's always a risk. There's also a risk and not having an account which you don't know could hurt you. And that's why I think it's worth doing and it'd be great to hear from some security and technology experts if I made the bad choice doing login.gov and I should have done ID me or which one has in their opinion as an expert, less or more risk.
Krista
Tom in Texas says we have T mobile, wireless Internet and two phone lines I don't see on Your cell phone recommendations, Anything about moving the Internet service? When we move the phone service, this Internet service is great for us. We can stream movies and surf the web.
Clark Howard
Okay, this is a great question. So if you dump T Mobile for your cell phone service. I had this question before and the best answer I could come up with is standalone Internet service from Met Mobile, which is actually a discount arm of T Mobile. So if you know the T mobile home Internet works at your address, you dump T Mobile for your cell phones, they're going to clobber you on the home Internet. So if you migrate your home Internet to mobile, same service, just lower price, you'll get whatever better deal you're going to for your cell phone service and you won't get a much higher bill for your home Internet. So that's how I'd handle it. And today is Dr. King's birthday. I did not know Dr. Martin Luther King personally and I don't know how you feel about him as a historical figure, but I believe he was a man of incredible courage and is one of the principal reasons the southern states of the United States have had such enormous economic growth because it created a safe environment for companies to feel like it was okay to invest and build factories and build headquarters and all that in the South. But it was so much more, he was so much more to me than that because he preached non violence through his entire life. And what a tragedy that he lost his life to violence after preaching non violent change. And a man of true is not a perfect man. But he stood up for what he believed with incredible integrity and fearlessness. And so I think it's important to recognize him on this day in honor of him for his birthday. And it's not his actual birthday. His actual birthday is the 15th of January. But like so many federal holidays, they're celebrated on a Monday close to it. But thank you for joining us today. And I hope today you learn something that empowers you in your life and gives you more tools to protect your financial security or grow your financial assets or think about something in ways you haven't thought about it before and know what we're about. We're about that empowerment through knowledge so you can save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off. And every day, all day long, 24 hours a day, clark.com and clarkdeals.com are there to serve you with information that will empower your wallet or stretch every dollar.
Episode Title: The Condo Market Now / Moving Abroad
Date: January 19, 2026
Host: Clark Howard (with Krista)
This episode of The Clark Howard Podcast focuses on two main subjects:
The episode is interspersed with listener Q&A covering topics from funding two homes in transition, high-yield savings accounts, wearable fitness tracker accuracy, to teaching kids to save, internet services, and online security concerns.
[00:46 - 07:23]
Current Market Conditions:
Causes for the Slump:
Buyer Advice:
Insurance Industry Response:
[07:23 - 10:57]
[10:57 - 11:45]
[11:45 - 16:38]
[23:30 - 26:58]
[26:58 - 28:34]
[28:34 - 29:37]
[18:09 - 22:30]
Why Americans are Moving:
Concerns & Cautions:
Lighthearted Moment: Krista and Clark fantasize about possible countries to live in, with Clark choosing Australia — only to note with humor that he’d be too old to immigrate there.
Overall Tone: Warm, direct, helpful, and full of practical wisdom — Clark Howard’s signature style.
For more advice or to submit your own question, visit clark.com/askclark.