Investment showdown -- beyond the Roth, SDP, & TSP

[StoleIt]

What's everyone's favorite low cost Vanguard Index Fund, ETF, etc?

VFIAX? VOO? BNDW? VTWAX? VCSH?

[AC&W]

19 minutes ago, StoleIt said:

What's everyone's favorite low cost Vanguard Index Fund, ETF, etc?

VFIAX? VOO? BNDW? VTWAX? VCSH?

I have VGT, VUG, and VWUSX.

I had VAW, VBR, VIG, VIS, VTI, VXF, but I sold those to buy VWUSX. 

Also, I'm no financial wizard and probably couldn't articulate sound advice if I even knew what sound advice was. 

[StoleIt]

31 minutes ago, AC&W said:

I have VGT, VUG, and VWUSX.

I had VAW, VBR, VIG, VIS, VTI, VXF, but I sold those to buy VWUSX. 

Also, I'm no financial wizard and probably couldn't articulate sound advice if I even knew what sound advice was. 

I'm also pretty bad at investing. So bad that even the institution I let manage my funds has been an overall negative return since 2017...thus me publicly sourcing information (and firing their ass and going to Vanguard).

[nunya]

1 minute ago, StoleIt said:

an overall negative return since 2017

You're right, negative since 2017 is impressively bad stock picking!

[pawnman]

1 hour ago, StoleIt said:

I'm also pretty bad at investing. So bad that even the institution I let manage my funds has been an overall negative return since 2017...thus me publicly sourcing information (and firing their ass and going to Vanguard).

Damn...I want to know what your next big bets are so I can short them.

[StoleIt]

2 minutes ago, pawnman said:

Damn...I want to know what your next big bets are so I can short them.

I'd recommend avoiding small time financial managers in Wichita...but if you want to short that advice then you need to invest with them! 🤣

[gearhog]

5 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Obviously a horrible day on Wall Street...All SELF INDUCED.

The core CPI rose sharply and we have gone from a potential lowering of the rate hike from 75 to 50 basis points to now a potential increase to a full 100 basis points. 

Let's celebrate.

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1569786577085251587?s=20&t=_wjOb9lS7vHcf7RYWIiC7w

Edited September 13, 2022 by torqued

[CaptainMorgan]

I got a free motley fool account from Amex. So far the best performing recommendation I acted on has lost 17%, and it was the source of all toxic masculinity: Activision


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[nsplayr]

IMHO investing doesn't need to be rocket science. If you've lost money overall 2017-2022, yea, please fire that company ASAP and name/shame so others can avoid.

My plan, at age mid-30s, is:

• AD mil pension in ~10 years 🤞, worst case Guard pension at approx. age 56.9
• Primary home that is modest in cost but in a high-growth / high-upside town
• 1 rental property that I manage myself
• ~85% investments in VFIAX/C-Fund
• ~15% investments in more conservative assets (right now that's I Bonds + a little G-Fund)
• Rebalance biannually as required, max roth IRAs first, then TSP/401Ks, then anything else

TL;DR - basically this + real estate

[Lord Ratner]

A few things I've done and learned in the last couple years

- I bonds. Google them. Best safe money possible right now. 

- if you have a large stash of cash that you use as a reserve for emergencies, consider keeping that in Treasury bills instead. Through the same website that you buy I bonds, you can buy treasury bills. If you set up a rotating schedule then you can have your 26 or 52 week t-bills reinvest automatically, let's say two months apart, and keep a much smaller emergency supply in a (low yield) savings account. Now if everything goes to shit, your emergency supply only needs to last you two months before the next batch of t-bills mature and deposit back in your bank account. You will get better rates in almost every possible situation by doing this. For example, my high yield savings account was at 2%, but using the above strategy, I'm getting about 3.5 right now.

- similarly, if you are keeping large amounts of cash in your investment portfolios (usually in money market funds), consider investing in a short-term bond fund, such as SHY. The money market funds are giving garbage interest rates. The caveat here is that if the Fed raises rates dramatically higher than we are expecting, the fund itself can lose value. But it is much less volatile than the long-term bond fund TLT, since the short maturity date makes SHY harder to fluctuate.

-  if you are hoarding for the apocalypse and like gold and silver, now would be a good time to transition your gold and silver investments from ETFs or stocks into physical metal. The prices are pretty depressed. But realize that gold and silver are a defense against a declining dollar, not declining stocks. The dollar will be strong so long as one of two or both are true: the Fed is raising rates, or, the rest of the world is doing worse than us. I expect the former to stop sometime in the next 6 months, but the ladder may take much longer. Precious metals have been killing it in other currencies, but with everybody rushing to the dollar for protection, gold and silver might stay flat for quite some time.

 

- at the end of the day, investing is going to be reduced down to a gamble on where you think the macro economy is going. Unlike picking individual stocks, which requires an understanding of accounting and market fundamentals, predicting the macroeconomic direction of the country or the world is much more a gut feeling. So you can trust someone else's gut or you can trust yours. If you trust yours, then find the analysts who have the same gut feeling as you do, and lean on them to do the technical analysis.

If you are a market bear, the YouTube channel Wealthion is fantastic because he interviews a wide range of analysts and money managers. It's a good place to start if you're looking for someone to manage your money, but want them to share your general view of the direction of the world economy. I just found a uranium analyst through them who is spectacular, and I've been looking for someone to help me play my hunch on nuclear for a while.

 

If you are a bull, I'm not sure I can be as much help, since the bulls have largely moved to technical analysis and a somewhat religious belief that the Fed will tackle. Inflation and all will be well. But Kathy woods and Jim Cramer are very bullish, so you could start by finding out where they are being interviewed and I'm sure a Wealthion-like channel is available for bulls. 

- if you have a habit of accurately forecasting world events, but never profit off of them, recalibrate your thinking such that when you have a prediction (let's say the invasion of Ukraine by Russia) you track down analysts some investors who share the same belief and find out what they're investing in. These people love to talk about their predictions, often for free, but most services are only a few hundred bucks a year.

- forget everything you've learned over the last 20 years of investing. Obviously that's hyperbole, but the last 20 years of low inflation fed intervention is fueled a bull market that cannot function in the same way with high inflation. So look at the things that didn't exist before this easy money Fed market, and be skeptical. That means passive investing in index ETFs/funds, cryptocurrency, home flipping as a hobby, The metaverse, SPACs, etc. If they haven't been tested in an inflationary environment, their past performance cannot be used as a predictor of future performance. Doesn't mean they won't do well, but "it always goes up" is dead until further notice.

 

- diversify. One of the money managers. I like a lot, said that he doesn't put more than 5% of his portfolio in any one asset, because he likes sleeping at night. Happening to one company or fund will only cost him 5%. If you really like a sector, that's okay, but diversify within that sector as well. As an example, I think nuclear is going to be an incredibly lucrative investment over the next decade, but I'm only going to put 20% or less of my portfolio into nuclear, and within that I will diversify into around 10 assets. Makes the chance of a moonshot lower, but the much more likely chance of being wrong less devastating.

 

[FourFans]

23 hours ago, StoleIt said:

I'd recommend avoiding small time financial managers in Wichita...but if you want to short that advice then you need to invest with them! 🤣

Ignorance is not an excuse to squander your family's future, so stop laughing.

To start: go read Boglehead's guide to investing.  It explains investing in simple to understand terms.  This is your future, take responsibility for it. 

The strategy is very simply, and will weather you long-term through any depression (there have been over 20 in the past 65 years).  In short, buy index funds that are broadly diversified and low fee.  Examples are a total US stock market fund (3000+ stocks), a total international fund (a LOT of stocks), and a total US bond fund (again, thousands of investment grade bonds).  That keeps you diversified and reduces the amount of money you pay someone else to make money for you.

Recommended percentages very greatly, but something like 60/30/10 respectively sounds like middle of the road risk assumption for a 30's something with high job stability.  Saying that, people will lose their minds over how correct, incorrect, ignorant, or whatever that statement is...but then they'll argue over 10-15% differences that make only relatively small differences in the end...especially when compared to the train wreck that your current investment plan sounds like.  Ignore the noise.  Invest in a few (meaning 3-5 max) index funds to start with.  Set your investments up so they require as little attention as possible, and move on with your life.

I am currently at 75/20/5 because I don't like bonds and I don't like international.  The bonds only live in tax sheltered accounts.  Dollar cost average (buy a consistent dollar amount at a consistent interval, such as $200 once a month, regardless what the market does) and rebalance as needed (adjust the percentages back to your baseline plan about once a year).

If you don't know what to do, put your money in an S&P 500 index fund while you spend a year or two figuring out how to invest...then leave your money in the S&P 500 index fund.  That's not me speaking, that's direct from Warren Buffett.

The intent is not to beat the market, but rather to match the market, because over a 20+ year timeframe NO broker beats the market.  

The Boglehead mantra is 1: keep costs low  2: buy and hold  3: stay the course

Edited September 14, 2022 by FourFans130

[VMFA187]

Well the past 48 hours ruined my near future plans.

I was late to the game in investing - Didn't really start until I left active duty in 2018 (spent all my money on cars and motorcycles up until then) and after simply contributed to get the max match from Boeing and now LM. Fortunately I (by pure luck) timed the market well with real-estate and bought a commercial/residential unit in SC in 2012 when I got to my first gun squadron that has increased in value 2.5x in 10 years and has a tenant upstairs and downstairs that both combined end up paying over double my mortgage.  In 2020 I then moved to CA and and bought a home at 1.75% (after a refi) which has increased by $800k in two years, that has a pool house which we AirBnB that each month pays the entire mortgage. 

Now a couple questions for those in the room:

1) I had been paying and extra $2,000/mo towards the principal on my SC property which would have it paid off in five years, 15 years after purchase. I recently stopped that because we had been planning to buy another investment property (STR) in the Julian area of CA. I made a competitive offer - Full ask with no seller assistance and got beat by three cash offers all over asking (this was two weeks ago.) Should I start throwing that $2,000/mo back towards paying off my SC home so that I can turn that into pure income once it's paid off or put that money elsewhere? I don't think I can make competitive offers against cash now that mortgage rates are 6.5%.

2) I've been doing 8% to get my 4% match, tomorrow I'm over the $147,000 social security contribution limit - Do I put the excess $260/wk back into my 401k? Or is there somewhere better? 

3) Any idea of up and coming housing markets? All the research I'm seeing state that the best time to get into another real estate investment probably won't be until Spring/Summer 2023 when sellers finally capitulate to the market and not what their neighbors got six months ago. I'd prefer to invest in something nearby, but it seems SoCal is impossible for anyone with not big backers at this point...

[FourFans]

9 minutes ago, VMFA187 said:

Well the past 48 hours ruined my near future plans.

I was late to the game in investing - Didn't really start until I left active duty in 2018 (spent all my money on cars and motorcycles up until then) and after simply contributed to get the max match from Boeing and now LM. Fortunately I (by pure luck) timed the market well with real-estate and bought a commercial/residential unit in SC in 2012 when I got to my first gun squadron that has increased in value 2.5x in 10 years and has a tenant upstairs and downstairs that both combined end up paying over double my mortgage.  In 2020 I then moved to CA and and bought a home at 1.75% (after a refi) which has increased by $800k in two years, that has a pool house which we AirBnB that each month pays the entire mortgage. 

Now a couple questions for those in the room:

1) I had been paying and extra $2,000/mo towards the principal on my SC property which would have it paid off in five years, 15 years after purchase. I recently stopped that because we had been planning to buy another investment property (STR) in the Julian area of CA. I made a competitive offer - Full ask with no seller assistance and got beat by three cash offers all over asking (this was two weeks ago.) Should I start throwing that $2,000/mo back towards paying off my SC home so that I can turn that into pure income once it's paid off or put that money elsewhere? I don't think I can make competitive offers against cash now that mortgage rates are 6.5%.

2) I've been doing 8% to get my 4% match, tomorrow I'm over the $147,000 social security contribution limit - Do I put the excess $260/wk back into my 401k? Or is there somewhere better? 

3) Any idea of up and coming housing markets? All the research I'm seeing state that the best time to get into another real estate investment probably won't be until Spring/Summer 2023 when sellers finally capitulate to the market and not what their neighbors got six months ago. I'd prefer to invest in something nearby, but it seems SoCal is impossible for anyone with not big backers at this point...

Questions to form your background on the real estate side:

What percent are you leveraged?
Do you completely own the house you live in?
If your properties go to 50% occupancy, can you still cover all operating costs without losing money?
Are you comfortable when our current housing market crashes and you lose 25-40% the value of your properties?
Can you survive if your bank notes are called tomorrow?

Those are the questions people were not answering well prior to the 2008 collapse, which led to people walking away from debts and hosing the entire market.  Granted, the laws have changed, but if we saw disaster coming, it wouldn't be a surprise...and it's always a surprise.

[VMFA187]

20 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

Questions to form your background on the real estate side:

What percent are you leveraged?
Do you completely own the house you live in?
If your properties go to 50% occupancy, can you still cover all operating costs without losing money?
Are you comfortable when our current housing market crashes and you lose 25-40% the value of your properties?
Can you survive if your bank notes are called tomorrow?

Those are the questions people were not answering well prior to the 2008 collapse, which led to people walking away from debts and hosing the entire market.  Granted, the laws have changed, but if we saw disaster coming, it wouldn't be a surprise...and it's always a surprise.

My current DTI is 22%. Real estate is our only debt. We pay everything else with AMEX and pay it off every month. 

I don't. It's financed.

I could pay the notes on both my SC and CA homes if the AirBnB and both tenants at Beaufort went to 0% occupancy. 

Yes. If that would allow me to purchase an additional property or two. 

No. I owe $120k on SC and $1.2m on CA. Only have roughly SC available immediately. 

Valid concerns but I also don't want to ignore the fact that rents seem to be consistently rising and 1/4 to 1/3 of single family homes are now being purchased by large investment companies. 

[FourFans]

35 minutes ago, VMFA187 said:

My current DTI is 22%. Real estate is our only debt. We pay everything else with AMEX and pay it off every month. 

I don't. It's financed.

I could pay the notes on both my SC and CA homes if the AirBnB and both tenants at Beaufort went to 0% occupancy. 

Yes. If that would allow me to purchase an additional property or two. 

No. I owe $120k on SC and $1.2m on CA. Only have roughly SC available immediately. 

Valid concerns but I also don't want to ignore the fact that rents seem to be consistently rising and 1/4 to 1/3 of single family homes are now being purchased by large investment companies. 

It sounds like you are well and wisely invested in real estate.  Personally, I'd dig in hard to re-invest in and consolidate what you've got instead of pursuing new properties...but I'm no expert, and it sounds like you are.

[pawnman]

1 hour ago, VMFA187 said:

Well the past 48 hours ruined my near future plans.

I was late to the game in investing - Didn't really start until I left active duty in 2018 (spent all my money on cars and motorcycles up until then) and after simply contributed to get the max match from Boeing and now LM. Fortunately I (by pure luck) timed the market well with real-estate and bought a commercial/residential unit in SC in 2012 when I got to my first gun squadron that has increased in value 2.5x in 10 years and has a tenant upstairs and downstairs that both combined end up paying over double my mortgage.  In 2020 I then moved to CA and and bought a home at 1.75% (after a refi) which has increased by $800k in two years, that has a pool house which we AirBnB that each month pays the entire mortgage. 

Now a couple questions for those in the room:

1) I had been paying and extra $2,000/mo towards the principal on my SC property which would have it paid off in five years, 15 years after purchase. I recently stopped that because we had been planning to buy another investment property (STR) in the Julian area of CA. I made a competitive offer - Full ask with no seller assistance and got beat by three cash offers all over asking (this was two weeks ago.) Should I start throwing that $2,000/mo back towards paying off my SC home so that I can turn that into pure income once it's paid off or put that money elsewhere? I don't think I can make competitive offers against cash now that mortgage rates are 6.5%.

2) I've been doing 8% to get my 4% match, tomorrow I'm over the $147,000 social security contribution limit - Do I put the excess $260/wk back into my 401k? Or is there somewhere better? 

3) Any idea of up and coming housing markets? All the research I'm seeing state that the best time to get into another real estate investment probably won't be until Spring/Summer 2023 when sellers finally capitulate to the market and not what their neighbors got six months ago. I'd prefer to invest in something nearby, but it seems SoCal is impossible for anyone with not big backers at this point...

While I applaud your efforts to be debt-free and/or buy additional property...have you considered refinancing the SC place to turn the equity into cash? The rates aren't as good as they were, but the flipside is that a new home loan, paid by your renters, isn't taxable income. Rental income is.

[VMFA187]

26 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

It sounds like you are well and wisely invested in real estate.  Personally, I'd dig in hard to re-invest in and consolidate what you've got instead of pursuing new properties...but I'm no expert, and it sounds like you are.

Thank you - But let us not forget I did ask a bunch of military pilots for financial advice! 🍻

Unless you were being sarcastic... Hard to tell on here. 

[VMFA187]

6 minutes ago, pawnman said:

While I applaud your efforts to be debt-free and/or buy additional property...have you considered refinancing the SC place to turn the equity into cash? The rates aren't as good as they were, but the flipside is that a new home loan, paid by your renters, isn't taxable income. Rental income is.

I have considered that, but in the past shied away because I like the security of knowing I "soon" will have one home paid off should anything devastating happen. That's probably not the savvy financial answer I should have provided but it has been my reasoning. 

Perhaps continue to pay down the home until it's nearly zero, then cash-out refinance to purchase a new property?

Edited September 14, 2022 by VMFA187
.

[ClearedHot]

1 hour ago, VMFA187 said:

My current DTI is 22%. Real estate is our only debt. We pay everything else with AMEX and pay it off every month. 

I don't. It's financed.

I could pay the notes on both my SC and CA homes if the AirBnB and both tenants at Beaufort went to 0% occupancy. 

Yes. If that would allow me to purchase an additional property or two. 

No. I owe $120k on SC and $1.2m on CA. Only have roughly SC available immediately. 

Valid concerns but I also don't want to ignore the fact that rents seem to be consistently rising and 1/4 to 1/3 of single family homes are now being purchased by large investment companies. 

I own six homes, three are Airbnb's which gross a combined $15000 each month.  I own them all outright so expenses are limited to taxes, insurance, utilities and Mx.  Two of the remaining I rent long-term and combined they gross $4500 each month, they are also paid off.  I do have a mortgage on my primary home but like you I am at 1.75%, I could pay it off quickly but have instead put spare cash into building a warchest of cash to purchase more properties which tend to be a solid investment when inflation is high.  A quick segue, over the years our wealth manager was against me paying off properties, he obviously wanted more money in play in the market.  I grew up poor and wanted to diversify, I finally had a heart to heart with him where I explained this is how I am going to do it and using my method I will always have a place to live.  That strategy has obviously paid off.  Currently I am holding on purchasing another property for the reasons you mentioned.  I may actually go with a large piece of land (40-60 acres), this time.  Listing prices are starting to fall and inventory is starting to sit, next year will likely be a good time to find some deals.  The transition has been rapid.  last year we made an offer on a house on the same street as one of our Airbnbs.  We offered $25K over, all cash, close in 7 days with no inspection, they didn't even respond to our offer.  Apparently they had 32 offers in 24 hours, one was $60K over.  Oddly that house is back up for sale and has been sitting for almost two months now.

I have a year's worth of cash in a money market (need to move it to short-term bonds), the Airbnbs and rentals are producing strong cash flow, as does my O-6 retirement sprinkled with some VA.  I work full time and am paid way more than I am worth so my DTI is very very low.  In all honesty I could simply retire right now, pay my primary residence off and live very comfortably.  I continue to work because I enjoy what I do and have a connection to the programs and projects I work.  As I am getting older and my mentality is slowly shifting.  We ALWAYS lived below our means and invested heavily.  I distinctly remember making making major and watching most of our friends buy much bigger homes.  We stayed in ours and paid it off in 13 years.  Now that we are secure our second goal was to make sure we were leaving a solid estate for our son.  I HIGHLY suggest all do some estate planning and look at things like trusts.  Many think a Will solves all your problems when in fact the typical estate with only a Will sees 30% of the estate consumed in probate.  A trust is nearly automatic in transferring wealth.  I have a family trust, a land trust for my primary resident (kind a newer approach in Florida), and my investment properties are in an LLC owned by the family trust.

Back to the mentality shift, realizing our goals for my wife and I and our son were complete our finance guy had a heart to heart with us last year and convinced us to start enjoying some of our money (dying with a pile of money does not make you a winner.)  It was absolutely mind blowing to me when I bought my wife a $100,000 BMW, but I adjusted and bought myself an even more expensive Range Rover this year.  We have other cars, an RV and an airplane and still live well below our means.  I plan to work another year or two then retire.  My wife wants to travel, I want to sit at the airport fiddle with my airplane and bullshit with the fellas.  If there was a large collapse I believe I am postured to endure.  Using the 4% rule or my retirement I would be just fine, combined I am obviously better off than most. 

I think I let this turn into a financial flex when the intent was to say your are on course, pay cash when you can, don't carry debt and in times of high inflation, real assets are king.  Without getting political inflation is going to impact the housing market and as cash dries up and rates increase real estate inventory will increase providing more opportunity to invest. 

Good luck devil dog.

[FourFans]

4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

I own six homes, three are Airbnb's which gross a combined $15000 each month.  I own them all outright so expenses are limited to taxes, insurance, utilities and Mx.  Two of the remaining I rent long-term and combined they gross $4500 each month, they are also paid off.  I do have a mortgage on my primary home but like you I am at 1.75%, I could pay it off quickly but have instead put spare cash into building a warchest of cash to purchase more properties which tend to be a solid investment when inflation is high.  A quick segue, over the years our wealth manager was against me paying off properties, he obviously wanted more money in play in the market.  I grew up poor and wanted to diversify, I finally had a heart to heart with him where I explained this is how I am going to do it and using my method I will always have a place to live.  That strategy has obviously paid off.  Currently I am holding on purchasing another property for the reasons you mentioned.  I may actually go with a large piece of land (40-60 acres), this time.  Listing prices are starting to fall and inventory is starting to sit, next year will likely be a good time to find some deals.  The transition has been rapid.  last year we made an offer on a house on the same street as one of our Airbnbs.  We offered $25K over, all cash, close in 7 days with no inspection, they didn't even respond to our offer.  Apparently they had 32 offers in 24 hours, one was $60K over.  Oddly that house is back up for sale and has been sitting for almost two months now.

I have a year's worth of cash in a money market (need to move it to short-term bonds), the Airbnbs and rentals are producing strong cash flow, as does my O-6 retirement sprinkled with some VA.  I work full time and am paid way more than I am worth so my DTI is very very low.  In all honesty I could simply retire right now, pay my primary residence off and live very comfortably.  I continue to work because I enjoy what I do and have a connection to the programs and projects I work.  As I am getting older and my mentality is slowly shifting.  We ALWAYS lived below our means and invested heavily.  I distinctly remember making making major and watching most of our friends buy much bigger homes.  We stayed in ours and paid it off in 13 years.  Now that we are secure our second goal was to make sure we were leaving a solid estate for our son.  I HIGHLY suggest all do some estate planning and look at things like trusts.  Many think a Will solves all your problems when in fact the typical estate with only a Will sees 30% of the estate consumed in probate.  A trust is nearly automatic in transferring wealth.  I have a family trust, a land trust for my primary resident (kind a newer approach in Florida), and my investment properties are in an LLC owned by the family trust.

Back to the mentality shift, realizing our goals for my wife and I and our son were complete our finance guy had a heart to heart with us last year and convinced us to start enjoying some of our money (dying with a pile of money does not make you a winner.)  It was absolutely mind blowing to me when I bought my wife a $100,000 BMW, but I adjusted and bought myself an even more expensive Range Rover this year.  We have other cars, an RV and an airplane and still live well below our means.  I plan to work another year or two then retire.  My wife wants to travel, I want to sit at the airport fiddle with my airplane and bullshit with the fellas.  If there was a large collapse I believe I am postured to endure.  Using the 4% rule or my retirement I would be just fine, combined I am obviously better off than most. 

I think I let this turn into a financial flex when the intent was to say your are on course, pay cash when you can, don't carry debt and in times of high inflation, real assets are king.  Without getting political inflation is going to impact the housing market and as cash dries up and rates increase real estate inventory will increase providing more opportunity to invest. 

Good luck devil dog.

A: Nice work staying the course!

B: Random question: Do you have a real estate license?  I'm a few years behind you on that track...and I'm wondering if it's worth the time.

Edited September 15, 2022 by FourFans130

[ClearedHot]

29 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

A: Nice work staying the course!

B: Random question: Do you have a real estate license?  I'm a few years behind you on that track...and I'm wondering if it's worth the time.

I don't, I thought about it but didn't have the time.  I have an agent I have worked with for many years and she gives me a 1% discount so getting a license made even less sense.  YMMV.  Interestingly a friend passed her test today and on her certificate it said something to the effect of "welcome to a family of over 1 million real estate agents int he state of Florida"...that is a LOT of agents for one state.

[ClearedHot]

On 9/14/2022 at 1:39 PM, VMFA187 said:

Yes. If that would allow me to purchase an additional property or two. 

Housing: Mortgage rates breach 6% for first time since 2008

A great quick read article that does a better job than I did of describing the current market factors and the abrupt change in the housing market.  All of this with another projected 75 basis point raise on the horizon.  YMMV

[Lord Ratner]

High mortgage rates are going to be a godsend. It's the only thing that will reliably bring down prices, and lower prices are desperately needed. 

 

Even some of the housing bears think we'll only see a 10-20% drop in home prices, but I think that's wildly optimistic. If we have higher interest rates, housing will correct to the historical cost:income ratios. 

 

No, we didn't see the adjustable rate mortgages that blew up the last housing market. Canada and Australia are going to have to fight that demon. But we saw a level of institutional investor purchasing that was unheard of until this bubble, coupled with interest rates that are unsustainable in the long term. I think those two factors are going to be more, not less devastating than the adjustable rate mortgages were.

 

Other factor is rents, people assume will continue to rise as housing prices fall, but they usually fall in tandem. If rents drop, the institutional investors that are already losing their dreams of asset appreciation will also lose their cash flow, and unlike mom and pop, the second it becomes unprofitable they will sell.

 

To add to that, another thing we didn't have in 2008, the baby boomers retiring. Many of them are relying on their home price as a component of their retirement. 50% of the generation has no retirement savings, and of the 50% that do, the median retirement value is 105,000. Why downsize when the value of your home just keeps going up? Conversely, I think there will be a lot of panic selling when they see their largest asset lose 10 or 20%. And that'll only drive down prices further. 

Even though they are doing a surprisingly resilient job of fighting the pivot narrative, eventually the Fed is going to break something in this debt addicted market, and at that point the political pressure will be overwhelming. Don't get me wrong, in the long term. The only solution to this will be fiscal and monetary tightening, but I think that will only have the political support required when inflation rears its head again, after diminishing somewhat from this round of tightening.

At the end of the day, the home prices we have seen are only possible with low rates and easy money, and inflation reduction is only possible with high rates and reduced liquidity. I do not believe housing will win out over inflation in the long term.

 

[arg]

On 9/14/2022 at 2:28 PM, ClearedHot said:

I own six homes, three are Airbnb's which gross a combined $15000 each month.  I own them all outright so expenses are limited to taxes, insurance, utilities and Mx.  Two of the remaining I rent long-term and combined they gross $4500 each month, they are also paid off.  I do have a mortgage on my primary home but like you I am at 1.75%, I could pay it off quickly but have instead put spare cash into building a warchest of cash to purchase more properties which tend to be a solid investment when inflation is high.  A quick segue, over the years our wealth manager was against me paying off properties, he obviously wanted more money in play in the market.  I grew up poor and wanted to diversify, I finally had a heart to heart with him where I explained this is how I am going to do it and using my method I will always have a place to live.  That strategy has obviously paid off.  Currently I am holding on purchasing another property for the reasons you mentioned.  I may actually go with a large piece of land (40-60 acres), this time.  Listing prices are starting to fall and inventory is starting to sit, next year will likely be a good time to find some deals.  The transition has been rapid.  last year we made an offer on a house on the same street as one of our Airbnbs.  We offered $25K over, all cash, close in 7 days with no inspection, they didn't even respond to our offer.  Apparently they had 32 offers in 24 hours, one was $60K over.  Oddly that house is back up for sale and has been sitting for almost two months now.

I have a year's worth of cash in a money market (need to move it to short-term bonds), the Airbnbs and rentals are producing strong cash flow, as does my O-6 retirement sprinkled with some VA.  I work full time and am paid way more than I am worth so my DTI is very very low.  In all honesty I could simply retire right now, pay my primary residence off and live very comfortably.  I continue to work because I enjoy what I do and have a connection to the programs and projects I work.  As I am getting older and my mentality is slowly shifting.  We ALWAYS lived below our means and invested heavily.  I distinctly remember making making major and watching most of our friends buy much bigger homes.  We stayed in ours and paid it off in 13 years.  Now that we are secure our second goal was to make sure we were leaving a solid estate for our son.  I HIGHLY suggest all do some estate planning and look at things like trusts.  Many think a Will solves all your problems when in fact the typical estate with only a Will sees 30% of the estate consumed in probate.  A trust is nearly automatic in transferring wealth.  I have a family trust, a land trust for my primary resident (kind a newer approach in Florida), and my investment properties are in an LLC owned by the family trust.

Back to the mentality shift, realizing our goals for my wife and I and our son were complete our finance guy had a heart to heart with us last year and convinced us to start enjoying some of our money (dying with a pile of money does not make you a winner.)  It was absolutely mind blowing to me when I bought my wife a $100,000 BMW, but I adjusted and bought myself an even more expensive Range Rover this year.  We have other cars, an RV and an airplane and still live well below our means.  I plan to work another year or two then retire.  My wife wants to travel, I want to sit at the airport fiddle with my airplane and bullshit with the fellas.  If there was a large collapse I believe I am postured to endure.  Using the 4% rule or my retirement I would be just fine, combined I am obviously better off than most. 

I think I let this turn into a financial flex when the intent was to say your are on course, pay cash when you can, don't carry debt and in times of high inflation, real assets are king.  Without getting political inflation is going to impact the housing market and as cash dries up and rates increase real estate inventory will increase providing more opportunity to invest. 

Good luck devil dog.

Umm, I've got 21 cows and a 1949 Ford tractor.

[ClearedHot]

1 hour ago, arg said:

Umm, I've got 21 cows and a 1949 Ford tractor.

Clearly you are winning!