Aside from dealing with grief after losing the love of your life, there is also the burden of sorting out your possessions, primarily your home. Jose Reyes Jr., a realtor with REMAX and a widower, is here to discuss how to handle a home sale and purchase after your spouse dies. He explores practical advice on handling these real estate deals, which is sometimes made more complicated because of the owner’s widowhood background. Jose also explains the importance of being financially prepared, prioritizing empathy at all times, and embracing self-compassion when dealing with the legal aspects of letting go or acquiring your own home.

I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. 

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

The Tips You Need To Sale And Purchase A Home After Your Spouse Dies With Jose Reyes Jr.

Our guest Jose is a realtor and a widower. The information that he has to share with you is vital. Have you ever thought you knew the first thing you need to consider about selling the health that you own with your late spouse? What he shared with me is not what I thought it was going to be but it’s golden and the advice that he gives younger him is priceless. Let’s get into this conversation now.

   

   

Jose, welcome to the show.

Thank you. I’m glad to be part of it.

When you hear welcome to the widowhood, if I were to see the ticker tape that no one can see. What were the first officer coming to your mind?

Home, honestly. Becoming a widow was a very traumatic experience. Guys experience it differently than women do but one of the things that maybe I did right was that I jumped on to Facebook and I found widow groups. It’s what I felt like as I spoke to more widows online and male widows and female widows and just read their stories. It’s like I feel homes. Widowhood is not necessarily a bad thing if you could find fellow widows that get it and that’s one thing.

I had a conversation with a widow and she was freaking out. She’s a client of mine. She was apologizing because in her view, she went off on me. She was a little more aggressive than most people but I was like, “Understand, I’m a widow. I get it.” I can feel her tone drop. Us widows have to give each other’s slack because we’re going through a lot and sometimes our emotions don’t make sense. If you’re another widow and you’re seeing someone freak out and you know a widow. Tell them, “I get it.” You don’t have to analyze them or fix them.

Celebrating Yve’s Memory

Those words go a long way. When you say you are a widower, what year did you become a widow?

I became a widow in 2018. My wife and best friend and I say that literally because I was an introvert and didn’t have many friends. She and one of the person on the planet knew all my dirt. They knew the good and the bad. For some reason, they love me anyway. It was my one of my best friends. I’ve known him since elementary school and my wife. Those are two people that knew me inside out and upside down.

The journey began in 2016 because that’s when we found out that she had cancer. She had a rare form of breast cancer and it didn’t show up as a lump. It grew as sheets. It was hard to detect. She did mammograms every year. She did everything she was supposed to do and then just one year, the year we’re moving from Gainesville to Tampa to be closer to her family.

The doctor calls us in and says, “Something’s not right. It’s detected and notice something.” They didn’t like what they noticed. They couldn’t find a lump but we’re going to do a biopsy anyway. When the biopsy came back 13 of 16 lymph nodes were contaminated with cancer. She was not only diagnosed with cancer. She was diagnosed stage 4.

What’s your wife’s name, if you don’t mind sharing it with us?

Yvette, but everybody knew her as Yve. Anybody that the knew her knew her as Yve. She was bubbly, funny, and shy maybe and also a little bit insecure but people that were around her wouldn’t know it because she has so much personality. She was so happy and friendly. Me and maybe a couple of other people we knew this satire side of her. By and large, she just loved life. She wanted to make sure that everybody around her felt happy, safe and the freedom to just be themselves.

How did you and Yve met?

The inside joke is that it was in arranged marriage but let me explain that. When we were both about 17 and maybe turning on 18, my dad had a candy truck back in the day. This was before food trucks were cool. This was in the ‘80s, but in New York, it was a thing there. I worked there for many years then one year in my high school year, I get to the truck and meet up with my dad because I worked after school then there’s this girl in the truck. I’m like, “What’s going on here?”

My dad’s like, “She’s the sister of a friend. She’s going to be working with us.” I’m like, “Okay.” Mind you, I am a recovering introvert. Very shy. I like my private space and all of a sudden, there’s somebody else going to be working with me. When my dad is gone, basically, I was a supervisor, for lack of a better word. At first, I wasn’t too happy about it. I’ll be honest with you. I just feel like there’s so many invading my space but she had this personality about her. There’s this happiness and joy.

After probably about a week, I was like, “This isn’t such a bad thing.” She was a beautiful woman. If I were to describe her features, the song that comes to my mind is Brick House because she had it all going on. She’s a beautiful girl face in the otherwise and it was like at first being mad then it was like, “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing.” I remember the first week that we worked together. Mind you, at first I was mad.

Only a week. You were mad that long ago.

No, I was dumb but not that dumb. Pretty girl working with me. I remember she found out for some reason that it was my birthday. She went and bought me a watch. It wasn’t super expensive or anything like that. We were young in the Bronx. Neither of us had a lot of money. I’m like, “Why? We barely know each other. Why are you buying me a watch?” She’s like, “You’re the boss’s son. I figured this was I should do.” Later on I found out, she liked me from day one even though I wasn’t too happy about the situation and that was like her maybe peace offering.

The best relationships are not perfect. They could be very good, but it does not mean they are perfect. You always have to be intentional. Share on X

Maybe if she gets me past the corner of liking her, but that was just the way she was. She wants to make people feel good. Our relationship was a very long relationship. We knew each other for many years. For three of the first four years, we were long distance and long distance I mean her family moved to Florida three months into our relationship. I was up in New York and she was down in Florida. This was before free cell phones and that stuff. We were we were burning coin talking to each other and writing letters. We even got this ingenious idea that we would record letters to each other on cassette tapes and mails those to each other.

I have to tell you something. My late husband and I met in the military. We were on the same base for a while then I had orders for Korea and he had orders for Honduras. I purchased this little yellow box in Korea. I’ve got all the miniature tapes that we spent over the years. We had two little recording devices. It’s how we were communicating because we have phone bills there were hundreds of dollars, so I can relate to that.

It’s priceless in the sense that we could hear each other’s voices.

Besides being on the phone. I had to get to the phone in the hallway at the right time. I’m carrying around this little recorder every time I’m thinking of him to make, so I can totally relate to that.

That’s funny. That is so cool. I thought we were the only crazy ones.

It’s a tribe.

We were long distance for a while, and finally in 1991 after four years along distance, we got married. Fast forward, we lived in Puerto Rico for a couple of years because I was living out there at the time. We had our first born there. My first-born son is full blooded Puerto Rican and he has a birth certificate that he was born on the islands. Me and my wife were Puerto Rican but we were born in New York. The other two kids were born in Tampa. From them, I have four grandkids at this point. It’s catching up to this story of cancer. It was ironic the way we found out about cancer because as much as we had a great relationship, we loved each other. The year before she got diagnosed, we almost got divorced.

Marriage can come constraints. Sometimes it’s hard.

I will own up, I had my issues. I was trying to figure out life. My mom had passed away in 2007 and because of that, I lost my way. I went change careers and that didn’t go well. I wound up getting back into my career into a lesser extent. I always felt lost losing my mother partly because I had a very strong relationship with my mom. She was the other reason I had huge phone bills because I want to talk to my mom.

We visit every once in a while, but it wasn’t a whole lot then she moved to Florida then we got to see her more often. Also, the phone bills were a lot less. When my mom passed away, we were in the house. She passed away at home. It was something that rocked my world and I say it was my first experience with traumatic death like watching somebody pass away. It’s a different story when you just go to like a friend’s funeral and they’re ready in the box and everything’s nice, neat, and clean. When you’re watching, it changes you. That created a pivot in my journey of life and we all had like an extended family in the house. As good as that is to have the grandma there for the kids and whatnot, it creates his own tensions as well.

My mom and my sister lives next door in a separate room but the proximity is very close.

My mother-in-law lived in with us for like 15 years. There’s a lot of little things that were going on. I remember one time, we went on one of those “date nights.” I was the one that brought up the subject then she did not react the way I thought she would. She had a sigh of relief and I was a little dumbfounded. She’s like, “I had thought about that, too.” That just scared the crap out of me because I was like, “You wanted to get the divorce?”

At first, when I’m thinking about that idea it’s okay but she’s thinking about those ideas, it’s like, “No. I’m supposed to be the jerk. You can’t be the jerk. I’m the jerk.” We had a relationship. We were just very open and very honest. We probably talked for about an hour about the whole situation and what we were not happy about and not happy about. We talked ourselves out of divorce that night.

Do you know what I hear? That open and honest communication that you two had brought it into the light what was in the dark because if you had never that conversation, you would not have been able to resolve the honest about what your likes or dislikes, what was hardening, and what was not. You cannot spend any time with someone and not have some issue. It’s the no talking about it that creates the problem.

The funny thing is, we used to go to marriage conferences. We would go to weekends and whatnot. You think you’re doing everything but then you have these other things that are like even though we talk about 80% stuff, there’s always that 20% or so of stuff that we don’t talk because we’re like, “We don’t want to be the jerk. We don’t want to offend the person.” At the end of the day, it’s like that Songs of Solomon. It’s like you got to catch those little foxes or they’re going to destroy the vineyard.

It’s like, there was little foxes that were slowly eating away at our marriage and we weren’t addressing it. That night was another pivot in my life and in our relationship and we decided we’re going to counseling. We’re going to make this work. We have been together for many years. We knew we loved each other. We knew they were things that just weren’t right but it’s like, “Are we just going to throw it away because there’s some things that aren’t right that we couldn’t fix?” It’s like saying, you got a car. It’s a good shape but just because the paint’s fading in this one little corner I’m just going to ditch it.

You can hyper focus on what’s not right and maybe everything else is big. Bringing that third party into make us be reflected but you opened the door. Also, you can continue to work at the relationship. Some people put a relationship on autopilot and then wonder why things don’t work out. We have to continually work, whether it’s a thing at Remax or a friend. We can’t let things go on their own. They never work out that way as well.

We had sadly seen relatives and friends that everything look like it was perfect on the outside and the next you know, they are getting divorced. Sometimes, the divorces turn ugly and it’s like, “How did this happen.” We were trying to be intentional of avoiding some of that stuff but it just reminded us as nobody’s immune to that attack.

If someone has to buy a house, contrary to popular belief, the most important thing is not its facilities but how it will fit into their life. Share on X

The best of relationships are not perfect. They’re good. It could be very good but it doesn’t mean that they’re perfect. You always have to be intentional. We had that turning point. We went to counseling. We probably talked about things that some of it I didn’t even realize that it was things that were grading on her. I think she felt more neglected than I would say grading because she was just that type of person who’s very graceful.

She would own the hurt that others did to her, which isn’t fair. It isn’t right but she would own them. Part of our counseling was saying like, “No. Jose has owned his jump. You can’t take responsibility for Jose’s junk. Now, if you got to junk, you take care of your junk but don’t own my junk. I need to know my junk. I need to put on my big boy pants and make sure that I’m investing in the relationship in a way that’s meaningful to you. Not just meaningful to me.” I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.

That was an eye-opener for me just because I realized I was a acts of service guy and she was a quality time girl. I could do stuff around the house for her. I’m the man. I did this and I did that. She’s like, “That’s okay.” If I didn’t spend time with her watching TV, which sometimes I’ll be honest, I feel like it was a complete waste of time then she didn’t feel loved. I just had to suck it up, sit there, put my arm around her and just enjoy the moment.

It’s an important part that when we take that assessment that I need to be loved how I like and me giving somebody else what I like may not fulfill them. It’s important to know what your partner wants because you’re giving them what they want. We’re naturally doing what makes us feel good to other people but they may not value that unless we can communicate with them and find out what serves them well.

My chapter two husband, quality time. I put my phone down and giving him my undivided attention. If we’re watching a TV program and I’m looking up on, he’ll pause the TV. I’m over with my phone. Now I exaggerate and put it face down so he can see it and I’m present in doing that. He cooks. He’s retired and does a lot of great stuff. I’m like, Why can’t I know that he requires that I know that he requires?” It’s because I want him to see that I love him the way he wants it and it makes me be purposeful.

The reason I laugh is because I’m that person, too. I’ll be watching movies with my wife. She loves watching movies in the night. We’ll sit down but then sometimes I’ll pull out the phone on the side. Every once in a while, she’ll have her phone out too but for her to have her phone out is okay. If I take out my phone then I’m in trouble.

We’re equally criminals in this regard.

Meeting His New Wife

It’s a work in progress. My new wife is amazing. I had a beautiful Puerto Rican princess. Now I have a beautiful Ecuadorian princess. The twist is she’s Ecuadorian but her dad was Chinese. You look at her face, you’re not telling that she’s Ecuadorian until she opens her mouth and start speaking Spanish. We met at a dance studio. I was widowed and she was divorced. We both were like, “We need to do something. We need to get out.” Staring at the four walls is not working.

My late wife Yve, particularly when she was sick. She was constantly harping on me, “If something happens to me, you need to go and find love again. You need to find a partner.” I’m like, “I don’t want to talk about this.” She’s like, “I don’t care. We’re going to talk about this.” She was adamant then I found out later on. I didn’t know before that she had a conversation with my daughter. She told my daughter. She’s like, “After I passed away, your dad is going to fall in love. He’s going to find someone else and it’s okay. I want him to do that.”

What an amazing wife.

I found out because my daughter told me. Now mind you, when I did start dating things were not smooth. Not even close. There was a lot of emotions. There was a lot of resentment of the fact that there was the feeling that I was betrayed the memory of my wife. That’s something that I hear a lot. I tried to be as gentle about it as possible.

I talked to my sister-in-laws which I still consider my sister-in-laws even though they I lost her. I talked to them before I introduced my wife to the family because I didn’t want to blindside them. They’re very near to my heart. My younger sister-in-law, I knew her since she was six-year-old. She was almost like a daughter to me. I wanted to make sure that they understood that I wasn’t betraying the trust and the love of my wife. If anything, I was honoring one of her final wishes which was for me to find love again.

I was picky about who I fell in love with. I didn’t just fall in love with anybody. One of the good things about hearing other people’s stories and you hear some of the horror stories of people who get into bad relationships. That was away from me to avoid some of those mistakes. Not all of them because they didn’t make mistakes. It helped me avoid some bad mistakes.

My sister-in-laws were accepting of it. Now they love my new wife. It’s tougher for my daughter just because she’s my daughter. It’s like, “This woman is taking my mother’s place.” She’s an adult now. One of the things that was difficult, was that when my wife passed away, my daughter was seventeen. She wasn’t even eighteen yet.

She was adolescent. She was ready struggling because once she found that mom was sick. She was distraught because she was my wife’s tail. Everywhere my wife went, my daughter went with her literally. If she went to the bathroom, my daughter went with her. She was taking a shower, my daughter was sitting on the toilet talking to her while she’s taking a shower.

That is my daughter now at her big old age. She said, “I don’t care. I bear with you and be wherever you’re at.” She has no idea she’s cut off at all.

They were super tight. She took at the hardest. Things are better. She’s cordial with my wife. The boys were more accepting. They are pretty much laid back anyway. My oldest is introverted like I was. We joked that he’s halfling on because he’s very like emotionless at times. Other times, he’s laughing and whatnot but most of the time, he’s very straight face. I remember one time he was in the house and Yeg was there. He said a joke like a sarcastic joke but it was like one of those inside jokes. He was joking with her and she was going to confuse. She was not sure how to take it. It’s like, “If he’s joking with you, you’re in. Your part of the family now.”

That’s how he was. He was a type of person who gives straight face with most people, but the people that were family and the people that were in the inner circle, he opened up to. He opened up my wife. my middle son knows no strangers, so he welcomes everybody. If there’s a dog down the street. He would hug the dog. It’s been good in that sense that the family has been accepting of her. At this point, I have no idea where I was going with this because I have taken so many turns.

   

   

Disclosing Widowhood In A Real Estate Deal

You have and I was trying to figure out. I’m going to ask this. You told your client that you were a widow. Do most people that know you in this version of your life know that you’re a widow or is it something that comes up naturally? How does that come about for you now?

I’m intentional about it. I have no problem telling anybody that I was a widow or that I’m a widow. Even though I’m married again, I still say I’m a widow because I’m widowed of my first wife.

That is my feelings exactly. I am always marked on walls widow. If he’s not here, you can say what you want but I live that experience. I am widowing every day when I think of him. Me getting remarried or continued living does not separate how I feel about him. He’s not here anymore and I’ve learned to continue living but I am pretty offended when someone wants to debate with me that I’m not a widow any longer. I’ll say, “Did he come back?”

I’m from New York, but from the Barrio. There have been times I’ve been tempted to punch people because I’m like, “That’s how much I love my wife. Don’t you dare tell me I can’t think about my wife anymore or I can’t grieve her.” My new wife asked me about her. Sometimes, we’ll be looking at pictures and she’ll ask me like, “Is that her? Who’s this?” I’ll be like, “That’s her sister. That’s her cousin and whatnot.” To me, there’s always going to be a part of Yve that’s with me because I dare say, “I’m not the man who I am now if it weren’t for the years that I spent with Yve.”

I can even agree with that. I am the woman I am because of the relationship with my late husband, Mark. I feel like I am a better wife from what I learned from being his wife and have brought into the relationship that I’m in now.

I’m fortunately that my current wife has been understanding of that. I wouldn’t say 100% understanding because unless the new spouse is a widow, it’s harder for them to understand the situation.

A lot of times I talk to widows or widowers who want to date widows but I hit the jackpot. My husband’s level of empathy, understanding, and compassion and just being able to not feel jealous or feel anything different but supportive. He has shown up in a way that I would have thought that he was a widower with his level of understanding.

That’s cool. One lady that I dated before my current wife. She was a widow but one of the things that was a red flag to me is that I noticed that she was a jealous type. I didn’t know how to deal with that because my late wife Yve wasn’t jealous ready. She’s like, “You’re with this person? Okay, fine.” She was very trusting. Sometimes, it isn’t a good thing, which that just how she was. Being in the dating scene and then having to deal with somebody who is jealous, I don’t know if I want to go down this road.

Let alone with that extra drama.

My current wife is very practical as well. She’s different and similar to Yve at the same time. They both like Hindi movies. Particularly the dancing part. They both like to watch TV in the movies in the evening. They both like to dance but then my new wife is very practical. Part of it is, she works inside of a senior home, a retirement community. She’s very much acclimated with the idea of death because I has clients almost like every week or every month one of her clients passes away.

It’s a perspective that I had never envisioned. When I talked to her, she’s like, “This person was 95 and they just passed away. This person was 70 something and passed away.” She even has a couple of centenarians over there. Some of the centenarians are walking. They’re not using walkers. They’re strong people. With that, it gives her a different perspective on death. She’s a divorcee. It’s a different scenario in the sense that it’s not that you lost them to death or either their own emotions or in her case, she lost him to another woman.

I won’t get too much drama but he was not necessarily a good guy. Let’s just say that. I met him once and I made sure I did not smile at him once when I saw him. I wanted him to know that we were not cool because I heard the stories of how he treated her. Also, I heard the stories how are young son confronted him and told him that when her husband said that he wanted a divorce. The son told him, “You should have divorced years ago instead of putting her through this hell.” That was his words and the kids was like eighteen at the time. Tough kid.

The Realtor Who Hears You

I’m going to pivot for a little bit. First, let me say thank you for sharing that but I know you want me to pull you back. We had agreed to that before, so let me say that for everybody. I knew my job was to pull you back. We had two conversations we wanted to have. One, we wanted to be able to share your widow journey because sometimes when people are working with people in the real estate arena, they feel like they’re just trying to make that sale.

They’re just trying to give half baited information. All they want is to sell the next house and the commission but your place in which you operate as a realtor comes from that place of your heart. It comes from the experience that you have. I love that below your name it says, “The realtor who hears you.” You heard that widow that was your client and gave her information and shared something she didn’t know that changed the dynamics of your inner action. If you would explain the initials behind your name and how you came to using the realtor who hears you as your tagline for your business.

It came out of the experience of the realtors that I had dealt with in my life. We bought our first home together in 2001. We got married in 1991. The realtor that we got Jonathan Colon out of Gainesville. I’m going to give him a shout out. He was very understanding and very patient with us. He took us through the whole process. He over explained everything. He was there at closing and I don’t even know this but there’s a trend that realtors don’t go to closings anymore. They’re just busy g. Going to get their next client because of Mr. Colon, I go to all of my closings unless there’s no way I can get there.

If there’s an conflict then I just apologize but by and large, I go to every single closing and every single inspection. I show people the houses. If they’re out of towners, I get out my phone and we do a video tour because I want to be the realtor that’s there for them. Not just a realtor that’s, “We signed a contract and I get my check. Have a nice life.” I still talk to my clients. I found out that one of my clients is having another baby and she bought a house from me for years ago.

I want to be that realtor that they remember. Part of doing that is you have to listen to people. If someone has to buy a house, contrary to the popular belief, the most important thing is in bedrooms, bathrooms, and garage. The most important thing is, how is the house going to fit their life? Are they single and this is their first home? Are they young couple getting married and they’re thinking about this becomes their nest for the children? Are they a family and mama has another baby coming on the way and they’ve run out of room? Are they an older couple and they have a five-bedroom house and it’s just them two.

If you don’t sit down and listen to them and ask them questions about not just what home do you want, but why do you want that home? Why do you want to live in this part of town? Why do you want a one-story versus a two-story? Why do you want to pool or not want to pool? Which is the funny thing that I get in Florida. More people are saying, “I don’t want it.”

An investor will never pay you full price for your house. They will always pay you less than full price. Share on X

To me, it makes all the sense in the world because a pool is a nice thing but you also have to maintain it. Some people want to have a pool. They want to be able to invite people over and party. I think that’s awesome. Other people don’t want the headache. There are more people that’s saying that and it’s funny. It’s the house they’re going to enjoy. It’s not my house. It’s their house. I got to find them their house.

Things To Consider For A First-Time Home Purchase

Thank you for that. If I’m finding a house for the first time, I’ve rented an apartment, this is my first time wanting to purchase a house. What are some things that I need to consider in this process?

Are you mentally ready to go through the process? Some people will see a commercial or see something online, “You shouldn’t be renting. You should be buying a home or you should be investing in your future,” which are all good things or of all other things. Sometimes, that commercial is not taking into account where this person is in life. Are they in an area that they know they want to stay there for a period of time, 5 to 10 years? Are they in a career that they would love and they’re going to be there for a while?

Are they with a partner that they could see themselves making a life and not just a partner that just started dating months ago. Let’s go buy a house. A couple of years later, they’re going to wind up divorce and fighting over the house. Should everybody own a home? I would say 95% of people should own a home. There’s going to be 5% of people that maybe they’re just not ready yet. Maybe their career is not steady or the relationship with that person that maybe their life partner is not quite steady. Maybe their job situation is not steady. Maybe where they’re at now they’re renting and it’s perfectly fine.

It’s working for them. If they’re not ready to move, it’s not my job to scare them into being ready. It’s wait until they are ready. They’re going to come back to me and say, “Jose, the rental life no longer suits me. I want to do something for myself. I want to put roots down in this particular community. I’m already 3 years or 4 years or 5 years into my career and I see myself doing this for a long period of time, then they’re ready. It’s the time to start talking to them.

I have a couple. They came to Florida. They wanted to find a rental then they found another rental in downtown Orlando and they love it because it’s downtown Orlando. They go down stairs, and walk to a restaurant. They come back and go up there to their condo. They’re happy with that lifestyle. They don’t have kids. I think they have a dog. It just suits them. That’s why I say it isn’t always 100%. You should buy a house. I would say 95% of the time, you should buy a house but being my full of, there’s that 5%.

I’m stable in my career and have identified why I want a home. What are 2 or 3 things I need to do to prepare to be in a place to purchase a home?

After you start working with me as a realtor, my next step would be to have you talked to one of my lenders because I can hear you as far as what you say that you’re ready for. The proof is in the pudding once the lender comes along. The lender is going to look at your income history. They’re going to look at your debts, your credit report, your bank account and any assets that you have and figure out, does he have enough in savings for closing costs and the down payment? If you pre-qualify, what size house can he afford?

This is something I tell people all the time. There are two numbers that are important. The price that you’re comfortable with or the payment that you’re comfortable with, then the max that you can qualify. Let’s say for example, you may have a person that qualifies for a $500,000 home. The payments on that home are about $3,500. That’s what they qualify but they may say, “I don’t feel comfortable paying more than $3,000 a month for my home.” The max doesn’t matter if they’re not comfortable.

I want to make sure we’re including taxes, interest, principal and insurance. All of that together when you’re looking at that. Not just a principal.

Correct. There’s a fifth one which is association dues. You got PMI and association dues. All of that has to be put in the mix. For some people, they may not know what some of these things are. Principal and interest is talking about the loan itself. How much is the debt that you’re going to take on to buy a house? Taxes is talking about property taxes, which anybody who owns a home or even a piece of bacon land, they’re going to pay taxes on that property.

Insurance is referring to homeowner’s insurance which basically is protecting your home in case a tree falls on it or a hurricane comes through or tornado. If something bad that happens to the house like fire or what have you. That’s principal, interest, tax, and insurance. If you’re in a community or if you’re buying a condo, you have association dues, which you can treat that like a maintenance fee. The maintenance fee maybe very basic. They just keep the common grounds taking care of or like in a condo. They take good care of everything outside of your four walls.

I found this interesting. When you have a townhouse, it can also be seen as a condo that common space in that property, which is often the roof or the wall between you and the other property. You want to read those documents well to make sure who’s handling those pieces of it.

It comes up quite a bit in townhouses because it’s not a single family or a condo. There are things like the pains and the roof, would be considered part of the maintenance or the association dues and other parts are your responsibility. Probably calling it maintenance is probably one of a good way of looking at it because if you’re in a place that has an association and you have association fees. You’re basically paying them to take car, whether it’s the common areas, exterior of the home, the roof, or maybe there’s a pool. Maybe there is a playground or some nature trails or other things that could be part of a community. You’re not responsible for cutting the grass on common areas, but you’ pay so that that grass gets taken care of. That way, the community looks nice.

Trash removal or snow removal.

That depends on the situation. If you have a loan and you paid 20% down. There’s no PMI there. Once you get less than 20% down, that’s when you start getting PMI. This could get a little beyond the scope of what we’re talking about. There are programs where either PMI is reduced or eliminated completely.

PMI stands for what again?

Primary Mortgage Insurance. Basically, it’s mortgage insurance. If you’re at 20% equity, you don’t have mortgage insurance or you can take it off. If you have less than 20% equity, so basically skin in the game. That’s where the mortgage companies say, “You don’t have enough skin in the game. We want some insurance to make sure that you’re not going to default on the loan. If you do, we want to be protected.” It’s just another form of insurance.

The less debt you have, the higher your debt-to-income ratio will be if your income stays up. Share on X

Selling A House After A Partner Passes Away

If I’m a widow, I had to join domicile with my deceased spouse. Both our names are on the property, so it doesn’t have to go through probate or anything like that. I clearly own the house with my spouse. They can ask, “I want to sell this house in New York and I want to move the Florida where my children are, but this is going to my first time purchasing a property by myself.” in also selling, what are some things that I should be keeping in mind on the selling end first time experience doing this solo and the purchasing?

On the selling end, the first thing I would do is ignore every single phone call that comes from an investor. I have no hate against the investors but a lot of times investors are looking for property that is what’s called distress. Now, distress doesn’t mean that the root is falling down necessarily. It could be distressed in that maybe somebody’s going through foreclosure or somebody’s going to a divorce or somebody lost their spouse. They’re widowed now. Oftentimes, these investors will call them or send them some mailer or even sometimes even knock on your door and saying, “We’re interested in buying your house.”

An investor is never going to pay you full price for your house. They’re always going to pay you less than full price. To be perfectly honest, some of them maybe are going to be generous and are going to say, “I know the house needs some work. I’m willing to pay you the equivalent of 80% of your home’s value and I’ll be responsible for 20%.” There are other investors that will say, “I’ll pay you $0.50 on the dollar.” Think about that.

Let’s say somebody owns a home with their spouse or spouse passed away. It’s a million-dollar home. Let’s say somewhere up in New York. An investor is going to come and say, “I’m sorry for your loss. I know that this is stressful time. Your house looks like it needs a little bit of work. I’ll take it off your hands for $500,000 and I can write to a check.” Does that benefit the widow?

Zero to me because what you’re saying is, “I’m going to pay you for half.” The term of the language that’s being used. Instead of saying half of what your house is worth just $0.50 on a dollar to make a sound small but that’s half of the overall concept.

That is value that you’ve accumulated over the years with your spouse. I’m pretty sure your spouse is intention was for the house and the equity in the house to benefit you. Not benefit an investor. I’m sure I’ll probably get hate mail from the investors but that’s fine. My job is to take care of widow.

This is a conversation about the widow. I have investment property. I have rental. That is a different conversation me as the renter or what that is. This forum instead to educate widows and widowers and the bereaved, there maybe somebody who’s parent passed and they now own their personal home. They’ve never owned a property before and they want to sell that because they don’t want to live in the family home. They want to go someplace else. They’re looking for a safe place to at least start getting knowledge and information to help guide them because it seems often times very difficult to find somebody you can trust when it’s dealing with things of money to be able to give you good advice.

My first client was that very situation. It was a young man. His mom had passed away. It was him and his brother but his brother worked out some agreement that among the inheritance assets, he got the house and his brother got other things. It was amicable in that sense. The challenge was, the house was in a 55 plus community and he was a young man. He’s like in his 30s, so he could not qualify to live in the community where his mother lived.

He then was talking to a probate attorney about his situation and the probate attorney then turned around called me and said, “I have this person. He needs to sell his mom’s house. He’s never done this before. The house has a reverse mortgage on it.” That means that the mom took out a loan on the house that she did not have to pay back but the stipulations on a reverse mortgage is if you pass away, your heirs need to pay off the debt in order to keep the house, sell the house to pay the debt or if a year passes by and house is not sold, the house reverts to the bank.

This is where some people get confused and think that a reverse mortgage, the bank automatically takes the home. It’s not necessarily the case. There are options but you have to be working with a realtor that understands that and is going to be working with you to make sure that you meet the FHA requirements because reverse mortgages are under FHA or Federal Housing Administration, and be able to get the house sold, so you can pay off the loan and he would get the rest of the proceeds whatever there was.

It was a challenging market. It was in, I want to say, 2020. The challenge there was 55 plus communities tend to sell slower than normal neighborhoods. Part of the reason is the elderly community is a smaller portion of the general population. You got less people looking for homes. The other wrinkle was it was what we would call now, almost a tiny house. It was about 600 square feet, two bedrooms, one bath, with a small living-dining combo. It’s not a big house at all.

It had a lot of challenges in that sense. The house wasn’t in bad shape. It was in very good shape. The mother took very good care of it, but it had these issues. It’s in the 55 plus community. It’s a smaller house than your typical house. We had to work hard to get that house the attention and to get people in it. Eventually, it wound up being an investor that did buy the house but we were able to negotiate a price that was attractive to the son.

Sometime the right investor can be a good match. It’s just when you’re getting those phone calls in the weight of your grief and trying to manage that alone. It can be overwhelming. Our emotions can lead us to make a decision that we may reflect back on later and go, “I wish I didn’t do that.” Having a third party or a professional working with you will help you make some logical decisions that will benefit you better than making one out of the most.

I would remind the widows and the widowers that the realtor is your middleman. You can compare it to your defensive line. They’re standing between you and the buyer. You got Mr. and Mrs. Seller here and then you have the buyer or investors over here. I’m in the middle. I’m separating you two. The investor has to talk to me and then I’ll relay the information to my customer in a logical rational way as opposed to when an investor deals directly with the owner. Oftentimes, they’re very sophisticated people and they know how to rug emotions in a way to get people into an emotional state versus a rational state. In an emotional state, often you take a deal that isn’t necessarily to your best deal.

Agree. For now, me purchasing a home for the first rime by myself. There are some things that maybe unique to my situation, versus when I purchased the last property with my spouse.

That’s where we want to dig into how do you see yourself living in your new house? For example, the house that you’re selling is a five bedroom and three-bathroom home. You had your children there. You raise your kids there. They brought their friends over. You guys have Super Bowl parties there. It was the center of the universe for you, your family and your friends. Now, you’re all alone. The kids are grown. They have their own houses. Instead of coming to your house for Christmas. You’re going to their house for Christmas.

Maybe every year, you’re going to a different house because you’re like, “We’re going to go to this house for Christmas this year and everybody’s going to here. Next year, we’re going to go to this house and this house.” Now, you have this big house. Nobody’s coming to your house for Christmas or Thanksgiving or what have you.

Which is great because you don’t have to cook and clean up, so we’re not upset about that. We’re happy.

Love yourself enough to let your emotions be honest. Share on X

Some people love it and other people are like, “I miss it. I miss having the people there. I missed being in the kitchen and cooking in the smells and stuff like that.” You have to sit down with them and say, “I understand this is how you used to live. This is how you used to celebrate the holidays. Now, as a single man or a single woman, you have your kids. They have their homes. Holidays is probably going to be held over there. The question is, what do you need to be living comfortably happy, inadequate and not feel like you’re a slave to your home?” Imagine a single a single person maintaining a five-bedroom home. That’s a lot of work. Particularly if there’s nobody else there.

If you have adult children that are living with you and their helping, that could be a different story. If you decide to rent out the rooms, that could be a different story but if it’s just you, that could be overwhelming. It could be triggering and like, “If my spouse was here, my spouse would be helping me do this but now I’m all alone doing it by myself.” It’s not purely a rational decision if there’s emotions involved or memories involved.

For example, when my mother passed away. She passed away in her home. For a while, my kids didn’t want to go there because this is where grand mamita used to live and this is where grand mamita died. It changed things. Even when my wife passed away. I love my mother-in-law dearly. I still talk to her regularly. She was not able to handle it. She was not able to have those going back to the house where her daughter lived and was never coming back to.

At that point, she made the choice to go live with her other daughters, which I completely respected. I wouldn’t have been able to take care of her the way my wife did. Her daughters would be able to take care of her. Not even considering like the man-woman thing but just my wife was there all the time. I was busy working. I was there later on.

You have some interesting points about the level of thinking about how you want to use the house. I was thinking something like making sure your credit score is good or making sure that you have enough like what is the amount that I want to put down on the house or understanding debt to income ratio. I didn’t give thought but that component does drive those other things that I was thinking about. Thank you for mentioning that.

It’s not an either/or situation. Savings is important. These days, credit scores important. There are programs that aren’t as dependent on credit scores but it tends to be a little more expensive. Your debt-to-income ratio is important. Looking at your credit report is important and making sure there’s not stuff on there that doesn’t belong there.

What is a good credit score?

It depends on the program. To give you a sense with FHA, which is usually with most people use for first-time home buyer. They can go as low as a 580-credit score. I’ve seen even lower than that, but usually get a lot more expensive. If you’re doing a conventional loan, typically 620 to 640 is a cut off for the minimums. Now, having said that, we’re talking about minimum scores. If you have higher scores or your scores are in the 700s or even in the coveted 800s, your interest rate on your loans can be very different than if you’re at the bare minimum.

I would say 580 is something. If you just have bad credit, we all make life choices and sometimes our life choices aren’t always best. We just have to accept where we are at the moment and if you’re in your low fives, then you’re probably going to be working with a lender. Some of them do offer career credit repair help to get you up to a higher score. If you’re already at a high score like I’ve had clients that come to me and they’re like 750s, then it’s just a matter of working with the lender and figuring out what they qualify for and what the interest rate is and are they comfortable with payments.

A lot of times, people get an artificial number in their head. They’re like, “I want a half a million-dollar home.” “Why do you want to a half million-dollar home?” “I don’t know. I just want to have a half a million-dollar home.” We go back and say, “Half a million-dollar home is going to cost you $4,000 a month in payments.” They’re like, “I can’t do that. That’s too much.” “You said you wanted a half a million-dollar home. That’s what is going to cost you.” We start having the conversations like, what can you afford? Let’s work from what you can afford and translate that into a home price then go look.

When you said, what you can afford, can you explain debt-to-income ratio and how that’s relevant to what you’re talking about?

Debt-to- income ratio is a fancy term for saying, how much is your total debt, credit cards, personal loans, student loans, or what have you? Some programs will exclude student loans and then your income. I’m just taking numbers out of the air. Let’s say you have $30,000 in total debt and you make $100,000 income. Your debt-to-income ratios about 30%. For most programs that’s decent. There are programs that want you to be down to 28%. Some will go as high as 36%, but 30% is like middle ground.

The less debt you have, the higher your debt-to-income ratios going to be if your income stays up. If your income is $100,000 and you’re and your debts down, that’s 30%. That’s usually okay. Where people run into trouble is that in their years where they’re renting, they start buying a lot of things. They buy that new car or fancy furniture and nice clothes and go on vacations, which none of these things are bad per se until you got to buy a home then you got to pay the piper. Now your debt-to-income ratio, because you’ve done all the spending and you’ve been spending it on debt. You have been paying cash. Now you have a high debt income ratio. Either you’re not getting along or you getting alone that’s going to be very expensive.

When you say expensive, do you mean high interest rate?

Yes, because the higher your debt-to-income ratio. If a lender is going to lend to you in that scenario, they’re going to lend to you at a higher interest rate than somebody who has a lower debt to income ratio. I wish we could talk to everybody in the younger selves and get them to understand that the credit card companies are not their friends. The car dealerships are not their friends. When they tell you this is to help you establish credit, what they’re saying is this is helping us establish another income source.

The income source is you. Do we need a car? Yes. We don’t necessarily need the latest model year. Do we need clothes? Obviously. We don’t need the nicest, fanciest clothes. Do we need a place to live? Absolutely. Unless you’re sleeping under box or sleeping in your car, you need a place to live. To me, the first purchase that has any major gravitas should be your home. If you want to buy a new car, buy your home first then go get the new car. If you get the new car first, your debt-to-income ratio may be such that you can’t get the house or you can’t get it for the price that you want. Are you going to sleep in your car or in a house?

That is a very important thing to consider. Jose, how can people reach you?

You can reach me via email at JoseReyesJrRealtor@gmail.com. I also have a website that goes to my business card. It’s just JoseReyesJr.com. My phone number is (352) 405-1037 and that is the phone I carry with on the daily basis. If you want to reach me, you can reach me there. I will not pick up at ungodly times of the night, just so you know.

   

   

That’s when you’re supposed to be watching the movie with your wife.

Don’t mess with that time. I want to stay married another 30 plus years.

Having A Little More Grace

You spoke about speaking to younger you. If you spoke into yourself the day after Yve passed. What would you have told him? If you could have remembered everything you know now, what advice would you have given to younger you?

Have a little more grace with myself. I turned into a robot. I stuff my feelings and I was worried about everybody else. I was worried about my mother-in-law who is very emotional and her sisters who were grieving their sister passing away. I stuffed down my emotions and I shut down. If you’ve ever seen that cartoon Inside Out one with little emotions. Remember that scene where the girl basically just shuts down and everything goes grey? That was me at that moment.

Everything inside of me just went grey. I went on autopilot. I was doing what I had to do. I was making sure Yve’s funeral arrangements were taken care of and things like that. Except for a couple of times where I just had to run into a bathroom because I needed to scream and cry. For the most part, I was just stuffing it. I would tell myself, “You need to grab onto some people and just have an ugly snotty cry and be okay with that. Let them be strong and not have to pretend that I was strong even though I wasn’t.” I did the same thing with my mom passed away.

When we went to the cemetery, at least in those days, they let you put the dirt on the casket and fill up the hole. I went to it. I grabbed the shovel and throwing in dirt. I was a robot. I was on autopilot and finally, my uncle who I loved to death. He’s grabbing by the shoulders. He’s like, “Let me do something.” Nobody else stopped me except for my uncle. If he hadn’t stopped me, I probably would have filled up the damn hole by myself but I appreciate the fact that he was there and basically woke me up.

He’s like, “You’ve done enough for your mom. Let somebody else do something for your mom.” In my head, I was doing that for my mom. I was doing what I was doing for my wife’s family and my mother-in-law, which I loved her early. Sometimes, we don’t let ourselves experience the emotions as they come and we stuff it then we wonder why we’re short with people and we’re ugly with people sometimes. It’s because we don’t let ourselves process the pain and the anger.

Only because you’re Christian, doesn’t mean you don’t get angry and you don’t question God. It’s like, “I know you’re good and I know you got bigger vision. I’m a little person hearing you took away my favorite toy. How could you? This was one thing that meant anything to me and now you just took this away. Why? What did I do wrong?” You have to be able to let it go and have people around you that will in some cases, force you to let it go and force you to have the ugly cry and not let you hide in the corner and pretend everything’s okay.

Questions For Tina

That would be an amazing advice to younger you. Thank you so much for this conversation. I know I’ve asked you a lot of questions. Do you a question for me at all?

You said you got that box in South Korea. It’s yellow. Is there a significance of that color?

No. I was probably in the market and they had probably 13,000 different colors and I just picked yellow. Mark’s favorite color is blue and my favorite color at that time was green. It probably seems girly and brilliant. It was the best thing. I purchased that when I was stationed in Korea, so every time he sent me a letter, I put it in the box and it was just super cute.

That’s fun. One of my sister-in-law’s is going to bunch of family photos now just because one of my nieces passed away from cancer. She’s like she remembers that my wife had a bunch of pictures of the family because of me. She basically raised all those kids and once we got together, I was basically in there raising kids as well. It’s nice to go through these pictures and just remember the old times. It seems nostalgic and cliché but it does bring back memories.

Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words

Downstairs in my front room, I have tons of photo albums. They still have the plastic and opening up and looking at the pictures. Not everything on my phone, so I can relate to that. I want to say something to our readers and I would like for you to close out this conversation with any words or remarks or anything you’d like to share. I want to say thank you for reading this conversation. I am sorry for the person that you lost that drew you here but I’m glad that you found us. I’m glad that you are part of this community and I look forward to speaking with you.

I want to say, love yourself enough to let your emotions be honest. I’m not saying be mean to people or be short with people but let people know that you’re being emotional. That you have a lot of emotions going on and you don’t need them to fix you or give you answers. Maybe all you need is a hug. Maybe all you need is a shoulder to cry on and that’s okay. We all have to be there for each other. If anybody understands what we’re going through, widows understand what we’re going through.

I say widows in the general sense, male as well as female. We’re all going through a lot. I’m seven years out. I still think about my wife. I still have loving feelings for my wife even though I have a new wife that’s an amazing woman but never forget your loved ones. Never let anyone tell you that you have a time limit for grieving. Jose Reyes gives you a permission to get ugly in that case.

Thank you, Jose.

Thank you.

   

Important Links

• Jose Reyes Jr.
• Jose Reyes Jr. on YouTube
• Jose Reyes Jr. on LinkedIn
• JoseReyesJrRealtor@Gmail.com
• The 5 Love Languages

   

About Jose Reyes Jr.

I’ve worn many hats over my lifetime. I’m the son of Jose & Myrta Reyes, Puerto Rican immigrants, and grew up in The Bronx, NY. I earned my Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Florida (Go Gators!) in 2005, and became the first college grad in my family. I also earned an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University. My mom passed away in 2007 from leukemia, which was my first traumatic experience with death. Then Evie, my wife and friend of 26 years, passed away in 2018 from a rare form of breast cancer. We have 3 children and 4 grandchildren. I was given a second chance at love, and I’ve been married for 5 years to Yig Lam, my beloved Equatoriana. We share 3 grandchildren, and have 2 grandchildren who adopted us.

As a realtor with REMAX, I especially enjoy working with seniors, the widowed, and their loved ones, and have earned designations as a Seniors Real Estate Specialist, Sellers Representative Specialist, & Accredited Buyers Representative. Prior to becoming a realtor, I worked in corporate finance for insurance companies, a restaurant, and a resort.