May 2025 - Newsletter
- Stacy Fernandez
- May 31
- 12 min read
Hello friends,
Here is the line up for May:
This post contains affiliate links. If you click the link, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you.
📸 Lincoln NE Area Market Snapshot
We are seeing more and more properties come on the market and surprisingly on the more affordable side of the price range. I have a strong feeling just looking at the inventory that comes on everyday that many small landlords (people that own less than 10 rental properties) are selling their rental properties.
There have been some big changes lately that are making it less friendly to landlords meaning more oversight, more chance of getting sued and more possible costs.
See the Landlord Update below for the full details!
👫 Realtor Matchmaking
In my Private Home Buyers Facebook Group I was asked how to vet Realtors. I created a document for them to use and thought it would be useful to share with you!
Want a copy for yourself? Shoot me an email and i'll send you one!
Don't want to deal with interviewing agents? Let me do it for you!
We will chat about your goals and expectations and I will get you matched with a Realtor that works well with you!
Don't forget it doesn't cost to be matched. We are compensated by the Realtor they are matched with in the form of a referral. Our service and education costs NOTHING!
Ready to be Match Made? Know someone else who needs a Realtor?
📝 A Note from Your Favorite Realtor
Well hello! May is nearly over and boy does the year seem to be zooming by!
School is out, people are gearing up for a busy summer and we have been surprisingly blessed with an actual Spring this year!!!
Last month we talked about bucket lists and how we had a lot of home renovations on the docket aka in progress and unfinished. As I am writing this we are still in that predicament but I would say we have made some decent progress the last few days.
Our house is in a complete state of disarray and has been for far longer than I care to actually admit. However here is an overview of all of the projects in process at our home:
Primary Bathroom
Goal - Redo entire thing. New tub, tile, flooring, vanity, light fixture, bath vent, move light switch to inside bathroom and fix the leak that was happening in our basement.
Current Status - New tub installed, tile backing prepped, 1/2 way done with tile (should be done today 🤞), floor installed, vanity installed and plumbed (we installed the p-trap correctly this time...), light switch moved into bathroom but may need to do some adjusting because we discovered our new bluetooth bathroom vent fan has a fancy switch, & lastly leak was discovered fixed and giant hole in our basement ceiling was patched by a very talented handyman (and friend).
Laundry Room
This was recently added and not originally planned. However we always said once the appliances went out that was the sign it was time to redo it! Surprise the dryer that sounded like a plane taking off quit heating again and became the perfect Mother's Day Gift - a new washer/dryer and another house project!
Goal - Paint everything, new flooring, & new appliances.
Current Status - Cabinets are painted, old desk cabinet thing removed, old appliances moved out and sold on Facebook, trim removed, walls painted and flooring is being installed as I type.
Be sure to check out the money tip if you have appliances you are needing to replace!
I can get you a discount from GE!
Basement
Goal - Fix giant hole in the ceiling from bathroom leak. Finish accent wall in bathroom hall. Backsplash for built in bar area, add new fridge. Lastly decide if we want to do a back accent wall and furnish that side of the basement.
Current Status - Giant hole was craftfully fixed, now we just need to remember if/what we painted the ceiling with to make it match completely. Accent wall is complete (except for shelves - not totally needed but would still like). Will probably wait on the backsplash, fridge, possible accent wall and furnishing because it has been a bit taxing on the pocketbook with all these renovations at once.
Backyard
Goal - Clean up the pine needles and prune the pine trees, figure out what to plant by the fence (under pine trees), start a raised garden, power wash deck/house and stain/seal.
Current Status - We raked up over 25+ bags of pine needles. Think we will do organic blueberry bushes by the fence since they like acidic soil - not sure if it will be enough sunlight with the fence and trees though so still deciding. We bought 2 raised garden beds from Menards very similar to these. We have them both planted and are hoping they get enough sun to produce for us. Power washer is at our house but we haven't hooked it up and sprayed the house/deck yet but should probably do that soon so my parents can have their power washer back...
You will have to wait until next month for the full renovation videos because I doubt we will get it all done and videos edited by the time this blog comes out!
With all these projects going on our room has been the storage head quarters meaning we have been sleeping in the guest room. We love the guest room bed (it's so comfy) so it hasn't been encouraging us to move back into our own room.
Hoping once these home renovations are done we can get back out and go camping again! Until then enjoy some photos of other life happenings lately.
We had a blast celebrating our past client Kate at her wedding reception at the SAC Museum! Turkey hunting with my family and camping at Humboldt Lake Park right next to the beautiful Southeast Nebraska Cancer Memorial - which is a whimsical garden, enjoying the outdoors, and preparing Gizmo for future mushroom hunting trips (hopefully covered up so less ticks and stuff in his fur).
Lastly if you missed the Tiny Realtor video you gotta check it out!
Hope you had a nice Memorial Day remembering those who gave their lives for our Country and have some beautiful reflections on the month of May in general!
👶🏼 Ezrael Exclusive
Summer Reading Challenge - Lincoln City Libraries
The Lincoln City Libraries have started their summer reading challenge!
We did this last year and enjoyed Ezrael's first baseball game with the Lincoln Salt Dogs. They are offering tickets again this year as well as to the Lincoln City Pools (we had that last year but didn't get around to using it).
*Also did you know you can exchange Salt Dogs Tickets for any game? We couldn't make it on the original day so we just took our expired tickets in to exchange them for the day we could go!
We are big users of the Library, in fact we were there earlier this week and you can tell it is summer time because it was packed! We enjoyed our last Toddler story time because Ezrael starts Montessori School next week and won't be around at 11am anymore.
If you are looking for FREE activities be sure to check out the Libraries! They have some really awesome events, activities and toys to play with all year round. You may even run into Ezrael there - hope you say hi!
What are you reading right now? Anything you would like to recommend?
🏘️ Landlord Update
National and Local Changes Affecting Landlords & the Quick and Dirty Explanation
As was mentioned in the Local area update we are seeing a lot of affordable housing inventory come on the market. I suspect it is because a lot of Mom & Pop landlords are getting out of the game. This is because of the recent Federal HUD tenant screening guideline changes and locally (Lincoln) law change.
National Changes
HUD that gives out federal guidelines for tenant screening has changed a lot. It encourages landlords to be less dependent on credit reports, criminal history and the use of AI to screen. Which is in theory good, because these items that come up on tenant screening do disparately affect certain groups like minorities or victims of domestic violence. It does open a can of worms though because the "disparate impact" doctrine means a landlord can be held liable even if their screening process isn't intentionally discriminatory. It makes screening much more of a gray area.
It discourages overreliance on credit scores, criminal records and evictions. So if you can't use credit scores, criminal records, or eviction histories landlords are fearful they won't be able to protect their properties and other tenants. HUD recommends individualized evaluations especially for those 3 specific areas. That means more time spent, they can be legally complicated to navigate, and open to inconsistency or favoritism. Mom & Pop landlords don't typically have an attorney on retainer to help them work through these issues. There are other problems with these recommendations as well but essentially it just adds cost, liability, and risk to landlords/property owners. Which we must remember cost gets passed onto the tenants in most cases.
Local Changes to Renting Real Estate
The biggest thing locally is that during the last election Lincoln voters chose to make it illegal to deny based on source of income - in other words all landlords will now be required to accept Section 8 housing vouchers. We will see if this holds up long term as there is already precedence in Missouri stating this is unconstitutional.
None the less this is going to require additional work managing multiple sources of income, time getting approved via inspections and very possibly money for any required repairs. All of these things are going to add costs for the landlord and these will likely be passed onto the tenants.
In theory Section 8 is a good thing, the government is subsidizing housing income for a population of people that truly need it. However in practice it misses some major key protections for property owners including no protection for damages that a tenant may cause. The inspections are hit or miss and pretty inconsistent meaning one owner may have small fixes necessary and another requiring large expensive ones - all which are covered by the owner. It is supposed to be a guaranteed portion of income, but if the program is run poorly that may be delayed and difficult to resolve (Omaha, especially, I hear is a nightmare!).
I am all for supporting housing for everyone but I am also a big advocate for property rights. Legislation like the one that passed seems great and altruistic but it also adds government oversight that adds additional cost and will probably end up hurting the very people it is trying to help more. It sucks because there are bad apples on either side of the equation that make it unpleasant for all and make programs like this not as effective as they could be.
All in all though we need to remember that rentals are for producing income and are not for charity. We also need to remember that it is not FREE to own property, landlords have mortgages, (ever increasing) taxes, maintenance and their own families to support as well. I think it is easy, so we often we paint landlords as greedy (don't read anything on Facebook rental listings you will think they are the scum of the earth!), but really most are just trying to provide a decent home and be compensated for their time, effort and ever increasing risk.
Local Changes to Selling Real Estate
This law change also has the potential to affect the sales of property. Since you cannot discriminate based on source of income you may run into a dicey situation like the following example:
You are selling your house for $300,000. You receive multiple offers.
Offer 1: $310,000 VA Financing (your house has some peeling paint, was built in the 1920's and is missing some handrails - all things very likely to get called on a VA appraisal), no inspections.
Offer 2: $310,000 Cash, no contingencies, no inspections
If I was the seller I would take the Cash offer in a heartbeat! Even though in this scenario they are both no inspections I know that the VA financing requires certain things in order to lend and my house would likely not pass. Thus meaning I have to come out of pocket to fix those things, reducing my bottom line, adding time and coordination to the process and additional possible contract outs.
However with this new law Offer 1 has a strong argument that you are discriminating on their financing. Since they were the first offer and offering the same amount they should be the ones to win the house.
Now I know we all think, wow that is ridiculous obviously the VA process is different so it shouldn't work that way... It shouldn't but with this new law I wouldn't be surprised to see a situation like this in court.
Anyway if you can't tell i'm not excited about this law change not because I don't want people to have housing but because I think the actual consequences are going to hurt more than help the very people that are intended to benefit.
Also Landlords - rumor has it they are really trying to make an example out of someone and there will be fake tenants calling to see if you accept Section 8 housing vouchers. Update yourself on the law so you can stay out of hot water.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk! I try to stay out of the political opinion side of things and I hope I achieved that here. It can be hard to write about these things in an unbiased way, while also trying to convey the actual repercussions and update you on current news that very well may affect you.
What other information is helpful for you to know about?
💰 Money Saving Tip
Is it time to replace your washer/dryer or kitchen appliances!?
For Mother's Day I got the most domesticated gift a gal could ask for... A new Washer & Dryer 💁♀️ I don't want to sound ungrateful i'm thankful for them I just find it comical that the dryer finally went out right around Mother's Day.
During our many trips to Home Depot I was shopping prices and doing some research by checking out the settings and capacities. Now I'm not going to lie I almost got stuck on the wifi, fancy 2 in 1's and what not. However I read some reviews and reddit boards and ultimately decided that was not the way to go because maintenance is expensive and takes a long time. Also my husband pointed out that the fancy ones still don't wash, fold and put away the clothes so do we really need a phone alert to tell us we still need to do that part 😂.
Then I remembered as a Realtor I get a discount on GE Appliances!!!
So I did my price comparison and it beat the Home Depot pricing! Bonus points because I didn't have to spend half a day trying to get it paid for and shipping organized with a Home Depot employee (true experience in the past, it was miserable, what I thought would take an hour took five...).
Now part of the discount rules is I cannot share the pricing or I lose my discount privileges. Knowing we are going to have to replace our kitchen suite in the near future I'm not risking it! Though I can't tell you the exact savings I can tell you it did save me money from buying in store.
The best part is that I can share the discounts with you too!
If you want access I just need your name and email.
Feel free to share this with friends, family and coworkers - I love saving people money!
What are your favorite money saving tips?!
🍪 Recipe
At the wedding we went to this month they had a recipe card to fill out to share your favorite recipes with the new couple. I decided to do this recipe as it is a favorite in our house!
Warning it is Sourdough but I promise it is for lazy Mother owners like myself!
It is not my own recipe I found it here at Cooking Katie Lady
Sourdough Greek Yogurt Cheddar Biscuits
If you need some sourdough starter please reach out - i'm happy to share!
Got your own favorite recipes that need to be shared!? Let me know!
💸 Free Resources
All of these Free Resources can also be found on our Realtor Matchmaking Site:
You can also find Lincoln Nebraska Local Resources here:
Wanting something else specific? Let me know, i'd love to offer more value!
🎯 Goal Tracking
Accountability 101 - Goal tracking update.
Well we are off to a slow start but that is just fine with me! Ezrael starts Montessori school soon so i'm excited to have some more dedicated time to put towards real estate! Especially my Realtor Matchmaking portion of the business.
I did get to help some past clients of mine purchase their next flip property which i'm very excited for them! They do a good job of making a house a nice place to call home. Will have to keep you posted when that comes back on the market.
If you want to help us achieve our goal your referrals go a long way!
🥂 Cheers
Until next month!
-The Fernandez Family
Comentarios