Best YouTube Channels and Podcasts for Homebuying and Retirement Planning

In this solo episode of Real Estate Connections, Mary Foerster shares two YouTube channels she believes are especially helpful for people thinking about buying a home, preparing for retirement, improving financial confidence, or making sense of long-term care costs.

First, Mary recommends How to Buy a Home with David Sidoni, a consumer-focused resource designed to help future homeowners understand the homebuying process, challenge common myths, and make a step-by-step plan for purchasing a property.

While David’s work is especially focused on first-time homebuyers, Mary explains why his content can also be useful for anyone trying to better understand real estate vocabulary, mortgage calculators, credit preparation, affordability, and long-range planning.

Mary also shares why she has become a fan of Erin Talks Money, a YouTube channel focused on personal finance, retirement planning, long-term care, retirement spending, investing, and financial decision-making.

This episode is not financial advice. It is a resource-sharing conversation for listeners who want more information, better questions, and greater confidence as they make decisions over time.

What You Will Hear

• Why Mary recommends David Sidoni’s How to Buy a Home
• How parallel planning can help future homeowners
• Why mortgage calculators can be useful but incomplete
• How credit, income, savings, and timing affect homebuying decisions
• Why real estate vocabulary matters more than people think
• Why Mary recommends Erin Talks Money
• How to think about retirement spending
• Why long-term care planning can feel overwhelming
• How personal finance education can reduce fear
• Why planning one step at a time matters

Resources Mentioned

How to Buy a Home with David Sidoni
 Website: https://howtobuyahome.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HowToBuyAHome

Erin Talks Money
 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erintalksmoney

This episode is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to Real Estate Connections podcast, where relationships open doors. I'm Mary Foerster and housing is a universal need. We are often thinking about our existing housing, our future housing, that possibly of family members. This is where you're going to hear the issues and the people who are working the issues every day. Please hit subscribe and like if you find this podcast helpful to you. Thank you. Welcome to Real Estate Connections podcast. Well, we have been actually producing podcast episodes since February, focusing on things like investing in real estate, how you get your house ready to sell some feng shui concepts moving. What should I do? What are the considerations that I need to make inside of me before I move to the West Coast or to the beach dream house I've had for my whole life? These are just some of the issues that we've covered. And I want to share with you the resources that I've been really blessed with lately. And it's two podcasts, two podcasts that I listened to. This is a person with a short attention span, but I make sure I listen to these podcasts because in the area of real estate in the area of, okay, I'm in my 40s, my 50s, should I be thinking about retirement decisions I'm going to make now? Or am I in my 70s? Yes. And should, how should I approach this issue in retirement, all finance based? So the first one I want to talk to you about is David Sidoni's how to buy a house. Ah, you know, I listened to it. I wasn't really crazy about it when I first heard it. And then I got it. I got it. David Sidoni has putting material on YouTube for a number of years right now, all about the many aspects, many considerations, so many considerations of buying your first home. And this applies to people who are buying anyway, doesn't have to be your first home, but that's his target. That's his, that's his, his focus, right? His avatar, as we call it. And each episode is rich. Now it's kind of a, a, a good one. So when you get beyond that, but I have learned so much as a real estate professional and as somebody who's thinking about, okay, what should I push on my podcast in terms of material, right? What are the important issues? Listen to David Sidoni, how to buy a house. There's a colon, it says something like how to buy your first house. I just listened to two episodes, that were just fantastic. One was on, believe it or not, the vocabulary of real estate transactions. Boring, you know, you would be boring, but what he did was he took a lot of the current terms, three of which I had never heard of. And he put them in the framework of how much of what we're seeing in the media is real. And then he used facts to back up. Do we have this kind of storm is coming, you know, the sky is falling. And he does a wonderful job dispelling that all of that extreme kind of fear mongering and gets you toward what the facts are. But let me just tell you one thing he shared. He shared something called parallel planning, parallel planning. What is maybe I'm supposed to know what parallel planning is, but I don't know. And he said, even if you are thinking that your first time home purchase is going to be out in three years from now, then, you know, what are what are the possible scenarios I might encounter over those three years? Can I work on getting my credit score up because that will mean a difference in terms of interest that your mortgage lender will give you or offer you offer you. And then, you know, it just what am I, what will my income be? Should I stay at my parents home or should I go share a unit in town with all my classmates, different decisions that you're making maybe early in your savings career, but I want to buy a house. I want to be a home owner, a property owner, maybe not a homeowner, maybe a property owner in three years from now. So he used the term parallel planning. And then he had a wonderful episode about how helpful or not mortgage calculators are. Well, I used a mortgage calculator. I used it as kind of, you know, the truth. But he warns that the mortgage calculate calculator, well, it gives you kind of a perspective of principle and interest and possible taxes, etc, etc. And a house that costs this much at this percent interest over that many years, it really doesn't take into account what your real life is. And it's scary. He said, he said it stops people where they are. There's no way I could afford a house, a mortgage that is in my neighborhood. There's no way I could do it. So he urges with data, he urges his listeners to think about what they want to contact the right people to get there and to think about it over time. I urge you do listen if you're curious how to buy a house. That's the first podcast that I really do recommend. And I get no endorsement or anything like that. I'm just enamored with the information, the approach as a consumer and as a real estate professional. And then the second I am in love with Erin talks money, Erin talks money, personal finance, a woman, you know, that is just totally YouTube channel and awesome material, awesome material. So Erin has been at this since 2018 when she was I think 25. And she, she basically started giving in consumer financial concepts. All right. So in full honesty, my greatest fear has been, will Carl and I be able to afford a nursing home in our later life? Okay, we're in our mid 70s. No question about that. And how much should we put aside? We didn't buy long term care insurance like my dear friends, you know, and we were advised that the products weren't really good enough. And she has this excellent episode, should you buy long term care insurance? And she identifies the current costs of adults daycare, assisted living, independent living, and, and of course, skilled nursing facilities. That's what we're all kind of, that's what Carl and I are planned for. Do we have enough money set aside that if either of us go into a skilled nursing facility or both, do we have enough money to cover our expenses? She did an outstanding job identifying and let me see, I'll paraphrase and I hope this is correct. 85% of us will not be ending our life in a skilled nursing facility. And that there are many levels of care and costs, and that they sometimes are very gradual. And we tend to be able to adjust to those expenses, some of us, as we regress, I guess, or changed about developmentally. She laid fears in me so many fears that we didn't do the right thing. That's just one thing. Okay, so whether you're 45, or 75, and you're thinking about my savings for the future, do listen to that episode, because it's very helpful. And of course, the numbers are going to change. If you're 45, right? In 30 years from now, these numbers will be very different. But you'll get a sense right now of how much and should I at this point in time, she does, she explains personal finance issues in a very simple way, not just retirement based, although there was another one that I liked, of course, it resonated with me was, as you retire, does your spending change? Well, it does. I mean, it does because your life changes. But there's this theory within retirement economics that over each year, your spending becomes less and less. She did a great job identifying employee benefits research institute data, and a number of other important financial houses data and under it so that I could understand that it's not kind of a declining line over all these years of living that my spending in the average person spending is going to go down. It's kind of up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. And then over time, over time, we will be spending less. So how is that helpful? It's helpful because one, it's reality. And I'm supposed to be spending less and I may be not. I'm whether there's a new roof going on the house, whatever that roof will come someday, by the way. And it's it was so, so helpful. So Erin talks money, wonderful podcast, I urge you to listen to it. I urge you to go to YouTube or your favorite Google site to find her other episodes as well. So she's really, really terrific. Anyway, it is a pleasure talking to you today. It is a sharing enthusiasm for other people's podcasts whose resources are quite valuable. And once again, I'm not a personal financial planner. I'm a consumer just like you. And I'm looking for information that helps me make decisions one day at a time, in one year at a time. And thank you so much for joining. And if we can be helpful to you in any way, do write to us email information at real estate connections podcast. And I look forward to hearing your comments. And always welcome to hear your your suggestions for the next episode. Thank you so much for joining us today. And I hope you found this conversation useful to you and your real estate goals. You'll find the contact information for guests and any links they recommend you have in the show notes. And should we be able to help you identify some strong real estate professionals in your area, drop us a note at info at real estate connections podcast.com. Thanks again and bye for now.