5 Outdoor Projects for Your Summer Homecation

 

5 Outdoor Projects to Enjoy Your Home (and What to Know When You Inherit a House)

The speaker shares five outdoor project ideas to make a home’s exterior more enjoyable—patios/pergolas, pools, sports courts, decks, and front porches—using personal examples like building a pergola with fans, lights, and a TV, and noting that pools can cost far more than expected. They emphasize doing outdoor upgrades for personal use rather than ROI, especially if planning to move soon. The script then shifts to inheriting a house, outlining key decisions such as whether to move in, sell, or rent, and the importance of coordinating with legal and tax professionals about mortgages, sibling co-ownership issues, and California Proposition 19 rules for keeping a tax base when moving into an inherited home or transferring it to a child.

00:00 Outdoor Projects Intro

00:24 Patio and Pergola Basics

01:05 Pool Costs and Buying Tips

01:56 Backyard Sport Court Fun

02:28 Decks and Front Porch Ideas

03:05 Do It for Lifestyle Not ROI

03:38 Inherited Home Decisions

04:17 Mortgages and Title Issues

04:32 Sibling Co-Ownership Challenges

05:13 California Prop 19 Tax Rules

06:04 Let a Pro Guide You

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Outdoor Projects Intro

Ever thought about doing anything to your outdoor space, like a patio or something? Let's talk about it real quick. Five outdoor projects for a beautiful and fun location space. Look, enjoying the outdoors is probably one of the most important things you do when you go outside, and you go to dinner. You think, oh, maybe I'd want to eat outside.

Sometimes you. It's blazing hot. Obviously,y you don't, but if it's nice and beautiful, 70 to 80 degrees, why not? You can build a per Perla, you can have a pool, what have you. 

Patio and Pergola Basics

Let's talk about a patio. A patio is anything that's an extension of your house and not covered by walls. It could be just the ceiling or the roof, and then it could be attached or not attached.

It could be temporary. You can build it in. I personally built a pergola. It's a six-column pergola with a hip. On Valley and whatever, and I learned it all. I learned how to do it all on YouTube. I learned what a hip and a valley are on roofs, and I learned how to cut hip and valley things on my roof on the pergola, and that was pretty badass.

And I did the whole thing. I did. The electrical place hasn't burned down yet, so gotta say. It's pretty nice, and it's enjoyable when it's a nice, cool evening and you have it covered. It just feels cozy. I have fans and lights in there and a TV, so it's just great for everybody to enjoy the pool. 

Pool Costs and Buying Tips

It says down here you can get a pool.

For $29,000, I can tell you it's 10 times that. Because I can, I know there are like two to 300,000, you can be like $500,000 for a pool in your backyard, but if it's something you want, I'm not gonna stop you from doing it. What you should do is buy a house with a pool in it and then re-fix it, 'cause you can have it resurfaced for like 30, $40,000.

It's a lot better than 500,000, 300,000. And you can do a lot of hardscape around it, make it look nice and pretty, that kind of thing. I have a house for sale right now that has a pool, and it's nice. And you either want the house with a pool in it or you don't. You don't. And there's like a Venn diagram, right?

You have two little circles. People who want a house, people who don't want a house. And those people who are in between are very few and far between. So it's not only a house with a pool in it. It takes a little bit of pressure, a little bit of style, a little bit of patience. Some people just don't want a pool port.

Backyard Sport Court Fun

I have a huge side yard. I only have one side yard. It's a zero lot line, but it's big. You know, I put cement there for the kids. They grew up, and they got to play basketball and baseball,l and they skated around on their little roller blades. They had scooters, rs and we had a tree house and the old sandbox.

And having a court, it's awesome because when your kids are being rambunctious, you kick 'em out and have a nice, safe place for them to go play. And it gets hot and they get t, ired and then they sleep well. Great courts are awesome. You wanna have nice evenings. With your friends, coffee, wine, dinner, what have you.

Awesome. 

Decks and Front Porch Ideas

There's nothing wrong with having a deck, especially if it has a nice view of the mountains or the lake or what have you. Nice. And yeah, I can tell you that a 20 by 20 composite deck is not gonna be $24,000 if you have it built. Okay. Front porch. Y havep. I, my entire front area as a big patio. And we, I love it because it has the shade, it has the evening shade, not the sun.

And I can go out there and just chill out and look at TikTok or play on my computer or whatever while it's cooling down. And I have it paved out, and it looks nice. I have a bunch of comfortable chairs,s and I have a little fire pit there, and it's. Really nice to have. So something nice to have. 

Do It for Lifesty,le Not ROI

Don't do it for ROI, do it for your use.

So if you're thinking about moving in the next couple of years, don't do it. You're not gonna get the ROI up. You have the return on investment for if you're gonna stay there for a couple years, 5, 6, 20 years. 'cause we stay in houses like 20 years now, 12 years, andthe list of California, use it. Use your space outside.

Do something, have a nice project, and you can be proud of it. You can brag about it, get it done, but don't think you're gonna get money out of it. Some people like it, some people don't care what you should know if you inherit a house, 'cause I'm a probate guy. That's what, that's one of the things we do.

Inherited Home Decisions

Let's go into it. Initial consideration. Should you move into it, or should you sell it,t or should you rent it? Or this is something where I want you to call me, and we can just bounce ideas off, and I'm not gonna tell you either way to do it. My intention is not to sell your house. My intention is to get the best use for you out of it, whether that's moving in or having a child move in, or what have you.

There are tax implications, there are legal ramifications that you have to know about everything, and I don't give you that advice. I tell you what questions to ask. When you talk to your tax guy or your legal guy. I'm the real estate guy, right? And I'm here to be your quarterback and shuffle everything together so we all have the same consensus and idea, so we don't talk in silos.

We mustn't do that. 

Mortgages and Title Issues

Is there currently a mortgage on it? It could be a reverse mortgage. Whatever. There are all sorts of implications. If it's a specific type of mortgage, you might have to refinance it into your name. If it's under your trust, then that might be able to hold out for a little bit.

So, something you have to realize and talk about. 

SSiblingCo-OwnershipChallenges

Did you inherit a house with your siblings? I've sold houses, multiple houses with a person and their sibling, and it's gone immensely smoothly. One time out of a hundred, you're gonna get that, that one thing where the sister and the brother are fighting for every little thing because they're petty and feelings are hurt and this and that.

Or there's believed ownership of something, and then you. Break out thelawyersr,s and it's just not fun. My thought is let's just get this done and be done and go on our merry way. But yeah, it happens, right? That's why you have lawyers. That's why there are lawyers out there. They make a lot of money doing that kind of stuff.

When you do that, it requires a lawyer. Oftentimes, it's better just to put on your big boy pants and adult up and understand that there are concessions to be made. Something to think about. 

California Prop 19 Tax Rules

In California, they want you to move into the house. They have something called Proposition 19, and if your parents pass away and you move into the house, you get to keep their tax base.

It's nice you can do that. And then Proposition 19 also allows you to move. If you're over 55, you can move from that house. It's another house to keep that property, which has a tax basis three times. There are a lot of things that you have to be aware of. There are certain loopholes and certain restrictions, so make sure you talk to the tax assessor before you do that, before you make a decision.

What happens if you want your child to move into it? Say your child's 23 years old, and he'ssemi-responsiblee. Yeah. You get to keep the tax basis on that as well, right? So, stuff to really know abou,t and that's what a lawyer's for. That's what an accountant is for a CPA and tax person. And that's my jo:s to point you off, get you in a little bit of trouble, and ask the right questions so that we're all on the same page.

Let a Pro Guide You

So if you're interested in learning more, let me know. I'm a probate and state sales expert, and I can help you out, walk through that.