firstwivesworld - When Real Estate Is the Ticket Out - Comments

The rise and fall

Guest — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:31:45 -0400

The rise and fall is only relevent if you are in an unhappy marriage. I'm saying this because I know there are people out there that are thinking this story is going to make people divorce.

Look, the only reason people divorce is because they are not happy. Plane and simple. So if some people read this and they are in an unhappy marriage they will take it into account. But if you read this and your happy it will go in one ear and out the other...

Toni

Real Estate is the hardest thing to split

Guest — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:44:53 -0400

Unless you sell it. But if you keep it, it can be a huge weight on expenses with one income. Be prepared to carry the cost of the house if you keep it.
In fact, watch this video. Very relevant and informative to this subject.

http://firstwivesworld.com/video/debbie_does_divorce_featured_financial_...

When Real Estate Is the Ticket Out

Felicity Buchanan — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:27:03 -0400

Chances are you’ve read about people trapped in unhappy marriages because they couldn’t sell their home, or couples whose lifestyles took a nosedive when they divorced.

Well, this weekend The New York Times ran an interesting story about real estate facilitating divorce!

For a number of years, Michele Kleier, a realtor on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, had a client who called her regularly to check on the price she could list her 9-room co-op for.

When the market was at its peak, the woman planned to divorce her husband, sell the apartment and live on her share of the profits.

This client went through with her plan, and now lives in a California condo, where she raves about the weather and revels in the distance she put between herself and her ex. “The real estate market allowed her to buy her freedom,” says Kleier.

Brokers and attorneys alike agree that the red-hot New York City real estate market has opened up a world of possibilities for unhappy couples. Up until 2006, it wasn’t that unusual to see home prices rise 20 or 30 percent a year, and though appreciation has slowed down, sales and market value haven’t. The price of the average Manhattan apartment this summer was $1.3 million. And the $3 million apartment is now the $7 million apartment. Half of that is a lot.

Gary Becker, an economist at the University of Chicago, has studied survey data and concludes that any couple who see a drastic rise (or drop) in net worth is at risk of divorce.