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Ten Reasons It's A Terrible Time To Buy An Expensive House


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2015 Jul 11, 12:58pm   938,611 views  448 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (60)   💰tip   ignore  



  1. Because house prices in expensive areas still dangerously high compared to incomes and rents. Banks say a safe mortgage is a maximum of 3 times the buyer's annual income with a 20% downpayment. Landlords say a safe price is set by the rental market; annual rent should be at least 9% of the purchase price, or else the price is just too high. Yet in affluent areas, both those safety rules are still being violated. Buyers are still borrowing 6 times their income with tiny downpayments, and gross rents are still only 3% of purchase price. Renting is a cash business that proves what people can really pay based on their salary, not how much they can borrow. Salaries and rents prove that affluent neighborhoods are still in a huge housing bubble, and that bubble seems to be getting more dangerous by the day.


    2. On the other hand, in some poor neighborhoods, prices are now so low that gross rents may exceed 10% of price. Housing is a bargain for buyers there. Prices there could still fall yet more if unemployment rises or interest rates go up, but those neighborhoods have no bubble anymore.

  2. Because it's usually still much cheaper to rent than to own the same size and quality house, in the same school district. In rich neighborhoods, annual rents are typically only 3% of purchase price while mortgage rates are 4% with fees, so it costs more to borrow the money as it does to borrow the house. Renters win and owners lose! Worse, total owner costs including taxes, maintenance, and insurance come to about 8% of purchase price, which is more than twice the cost of renting and wipes out any income tax benefit.

    The only true sign of a bottom is a price low enough so that you could rent out the house and make a profit. Then you'll know it's pretty safe to buy for yourself because then rent could cover the mortgage and ownership expenses if necessary, eliminating most of your risk. The basic buying safety rule is to divide annual rent by the purchase price for the house:

    annual rent / purchase price = 3% means do not buy, prices are too high

    annual rent / purchase price = 6% means borderline

    annual rent / purchase price = 9% means ok to buy, prices are reasonable

    So for example, it's borderline to pay $200,000 for a house that would cost you $1,000 per month to rent. That's $12,000 per year in rent. If you buy it with a 6% mortgage, that's $12,000 per year in interest instead, so it works out about the same. Owners can pay interest with pre-tax money, but that benefit gets wiped out by the eternal debts of repairs and property tax, equalizing things. It is foolish to pay $400,000 for that same house, because renting it would cost only half as much per year, and renters are completely safe from falling housing prices. Subtract HOA from rent before doing the calculation for condos.

    Although there is no way to be sure that rents won't fall, comparing the local employment rate (demand) to the current local supply of available homes for rent or sale (supply) should help you figure out whether a big fall in rents could happen. Checking these factors minimizizes your risk.


  3. Because it's a terrible time to buy when interest rates are low, like now. House prices rose as interest rates fell, and house prices will fall if interest rates rise without a strong increase in jobs, because a fixed monthly payment covers a smaller mortgage at a higher interest rate. Since interest rates have nowhere to go but up, prices have nowhere to go but down. When housing falls, you lose your equity, but not your debt.

    The way to win the game is to have cash on hand to buy outright at a low price when others cannot borrow very much because of high interest rates. Then you get a low price, and you get capital appreciation caused by future interest rate declines. To buy an expensive house at a time of low interest rates and high prices like now is a mistake.

    It is far better to pay a low price with a high interest rate than a high price with a low interest rate, even if the mortgage payment is the same either way.



    • A low price lets you pay it all off instead of being a debt-slave for the rest of your life.


    • As interest rates fall, real estate prices generally rise.


    • Your property taxes will be lower with a low purchase price.


    • Paying a high price now may trap you "under water", meaning you'll have a mortgage debt larger than the value of the house. Then you will not be able to refinance because then you'll have no equity, and will not be able to sell without a loss. Even if you get a long-term fixed rate mortgage, when rates inevitably go up the value of your property will go down. Paying a low price minimizes your damage.


    • You can refinance when you buy at a higher interest rate and rates fall, but current buyers will never be able to refinance for a lower interest rate in the future. Rates are already as low as they can go.






  4. Because buyers already borrowed too much money and cannot pay it back. They spent it on houses that are now worth less than the loans. This means most banks are still actually bankrupt. But since the banks have friends in Washington, they get special treatment that you do not. The Federal Reserve prints up bales of new money to buy worthless mortgages from irresponsible banks, slowing down the buyer-friendly deflation in housing prices and socializing bank losses.

    The Fed exists to protect big banks from the free market, at your expense. Banks get to keep any profits they make, but bank losses just get passed on to you as extra cost added on to the price of a house, when the Fed prints up money and buys their bad mortgages. If the Fed did not prevent the free market from working, you would be able to buy a house much more cheaply.

    As if that were not enough corruption, Congress authorized vast amounts of TARP bailout cash taken from taxpayers to be loaned directly to the worst-run banks, those that already gambled on mortgages and lost. The Fed and Congress are letting the banks "extend and pretend" that their mortgage loans will get

    paid back.

    And of course the banks can simply sell millions of bad loans to Fannie and Freddie at full price, putting taxpayers on the hook for the banks' gambling losses. Heads they win, tails you lose.

    It is necessary that YOU be forced deeply into debt, and therefore forced into slavery, for the banks to make a profit. If you pay a low price for a house and manage to avoid debt, the banks lose control over you. Unacceptable to them. It's all a filthy battle for control over your labor.

    This is why you will never hear the president or anyone else in power say that we need lower house prices. They always talk about "affordability" but what they always mean is debt-slavery.


  5. Because buyers used too much leverage. Leverage means using debt to amplify gain. Most people forget that debt amplifies losses as well. If a buyer puts 10% down and the house goes down 10%, he has lost 100% of his money on paper. If he has to sell due to job loss or a mortgage rate adjustment, he lost 100% in the real world.

    The simple fact is that the renter - if willing and able to save his money - can buy a house outright in half the time that a conventional buyer can pay off a mortgage. Interest generally accounts for more than half of the cost of a house. The saver/renter not only pays no interest, he also gets interest on his savings, even if just a little. Leveraged housing appreciation, usually presented as the "secret" to wealth, cannot be counted on, and can just as easily work against the buyer. In fact, that leverage is the danger that got current buyers into trouble.

    The higher-end housing market is now set up for a huge crash in prices, since there is no more fake paper equity from the sale of a previously overvalued property and because the market for securitized jumbo loans is dead. Without that fake equity, most people don't have the money needed for a down payment on an expensive house. It takes a very long time indeed to save up for a 20% downpayment when you're still making mortgage payments on an underwater house.

    It's worse than that. House prices do not even have to fall to cause big losses. The cost of selling a house is kept unfairly high because of the Realtor® lobby's corruption of US legislators. On a $300,000 house, 6% is $18,000 lost even if housing prices just stay flat. So a 4% decline in housing prices bankrupts all those with 10% equity or less.


  6. Because the housing bubble was not driven by supply and demand. There is huge supply because of overbuilding, and there is less demand now that the baby boomers are retiring and selling. Prices in the housing market, even now, are entirely a function of how much the banks are willing and able to lend. Most people will borrow as much as they possibly can, amounts that are completely disconnected from their salaries or from the rental value of the property. Banks have been willing to accomodate crazy borrowers because banker control of the US government means that banks do not yet have to acknowledge their losses, or can push losses onto taxpayers through government housing agencies like the FHA.


  7. Because there is still a massive backlog of latent foreclosures. Millions of owners stopped paying their mortgages, and the banks are still not forclosing on all of them, letting the owner live in the house for free. If a bank forecloses and takes possession of a house, that means the bank is responsible for property taxes and maintenance. Banks don't like those costs. If a bank then sells the foreclosure at current prices, the bank has to admit a loss on the loan. Banks like that cost even less. So there is a tsunami of foreclosures on the way that the banks are ignoring, for now. To prevent a justified foreclosure is also to prevent a deserving family from buying that house at a low price. Right now, those foreclosures will wash over the landscape, decimating prices, and benefitting millions of families which will be able to buy a house without a suicidal level of debt, and maybe without any debt at all!


  8. Because first-time buyers have all been ruthlessly exploited and the supply of new victims is very low.

    From The Herald:

    "We were all corrupted by the housing boom, to some extent. People talked endlessly about how their houses were earning more than they did, never asking where all this free money was coming from. Well the truth is that it was being stolen from the next generation. Houses price increases don't produce wealth, they merely transfer it from the young to the old - from the coming generation of families who have to burden themselves with colossal debts if they want to own, to the baby boomers who are about to retire and live on the cash they make when they downsize."

    House price inflation has been very unfair to new families, especially those with children. It is foolish for them to buy at current high prices, yet government leaders never talk about how lower house prices are good for American families, instead preferring to sacrifice the young and poor to benefit the old and rich, and to make sure bankers have plenty of debt to earn interest on. Your debt is their wealth. Every "affordability" program drives prices higher by pushing buyers deeper into debt. Increased debt is not affordability, it's just pushing the reckoning into the future. To really help Americans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the FHA should be completely eliminated. Even more important is eliminating the mortgage-interest deduction, which costs the government $400 billion per year in tax revenue. The mortgage interest deduction directly harms all buyers by keeping prices higher than they would otherwise be, costing buyers more in extra purchase cost than they save on taxes. The $8,000 buyer tax credit cost each buyer in Massachusetts an extra $39,000 in purchase price. Subsidies just make the subsidized item more expensive. Buyers should be rioting in the streets, demanding an end to all mortgage subsidies. Canada and Australia have no mortgage-interest deduction for owner-occupied housing. It can be done.

    The government pretends to be interested in affordable housing, but now that housing is becoming truly affordable via falling prices, they want to stop it? Their actions speak louder than their words.



  9. Because boomers are retiring. There are 70 million Americans born between 1945-1960. One-third have zero retirement savings. The oldest are 66. The only money they have is equity in a house, so they must sell. This will add yet another flood of houses to the market, driving prices down even more.


  10. Because there is a huge glut of empty new houses. Builders are being forced to drop prices even faster than owners, because builders must sell to keep their business going. They need the money now. Builders have huge excess inventory that they cannot sell at current prices, and more houses are completed each day, making the housing slump worse.




Next Page: Eight groups who lie about the housing market »



The Housing Trap

You're being set up to spend your life paying off a debt you don't need to take on, for a house that costs far more than it should. The conspirators are all around you, smiling to lure you in, carefully choosing their words and watching your reactions as they push your buttons, anxiously waiting for the moment when you sign the papers that will trap you and guarantee their payoff. Don't be just another victim of the housing market. Use this book to defend your freedom and defeat their schemes. You can win the game, but first you have to learn how to play it.

115 pages, $12.50Kindle version available

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321   clambo   2020 Sep 5, 9:05am  

I know a guy who built a cool house up the coast from Santa Cruz. He has a lot of money.

He’s still pissed off at two checks for $25,000 he writes each year to the county for property tax.
In return he gets nothing of course.

Now he’s more pissed; he had a gigantic water tank in case of fire, but when Calfire went to save his house, it was empty. His $5 million bucks went up in smoke.

Evidently a neighbor tapped it to save his house, or maybe an illegal growing weed did.
So much for “helping your neighbor.”

A girl recently was giving me shit for being a renter; I reminded her that my net worth rose the price of a crummy place here in a few weeks, but no fire can burn down my mutual funds and shares of AAPL, MSFT, ROKU, BABA, DE.

The California and county governments want you to buy a house; you will be on the hook paying for pensions, health care for losers and illegals, schools run by maniacs, and worse, the dimwit realtors fuel the illusion saying that the house is an investment, although you will have a difficult time getting the capital gains into your checking account.

I don’t know a lot of people but I know two who are leaving the taxes behind, ironically one is a “realtor” , one is in Washington State (no income tax) , the realtor is considering Texas and Florida.
322   Dholliday126   2020 Sep 5, 9:46am  

I think people get negative on housing because the are priced out or cant afford it. Housing is just like stocks, both pretty much go up and down together because they are wealth havens and inflation hedges. If stocks crashed, housing would too and Visa versa. Except housing is a little more sticky when lending is normal. Maybe housing is a little more scarcity driven. Plus with housing you get tax reduction and forced saving. However, you do get upkeep and taxes, which maybe offsets that, not sure. I've always thought that owning a house comes with 2% yearly fee, usually 1% of house cost in taxes and 1% in maintenance. That's kind of like stocks too, although management fees have been falling.

My point is that dont be negative on one or the other, they are kind of the same, just one is more accessible because of cost. In a perfect world you are in both, that's how you grow wealth.
323   Tenpoundbass   2020 Sep 5, 10:03am  

Trump's second term is going to be all about "Build Baby Build"
He's going to build so many Suburbs that the median price for a 1200sqft to 2100sqft Burbdale Ranchero house wont be worth a penny over $175, no matter where you live.
America needs starter houses ranging between $75K to $175K or we can't survive, the Commies will take over for sure, when the American dream is dead. Trump needs to charge up the paddles and yell "CLEAR!"
324   Ceffer   2020 Sep 5, 10:06am  

One of the arguments was that owning forced people to save and acquire equity. However, borrowing against equity kiboshed that notion. Clambo is a 'prudent renter' in that he still saves and redirects assets to increase value. Patrick has always been right that renting can allow you to acquire net worth without the anchor weight of owned real estate. You never own this shit, anyway, you are just always leasing it from the government tax monster that in California gets bigger and bigger with all the crooked pols in this state.

Majority of the population spend everything they have on bling and monster trucks. As they age, they become unhealthy AND improvident with no place they own to live. Then, they are the ones who need to scrape by on fumes past the age when they can meaningfully work.

If owning actually forced people to save and gain equity, it might be a good argument for owning, but people are shiftless, fickle and short sighted, so that argument doesn't apply. People that are prudent and save can either rent or own, they will make it work for themselves. People who aren't prudent will never be prudent.
325   clambo   2020 Sep 5, 10:14am  

I’m negative about the “benefits of ownership” for reasons not related to affordability.
I have the dough, but I’m greedy. I want real capital gains that I can actually use.
The equity in your house is useless unless you 1. Move 2. Take in boarders 3. Reverse mortgage.
My grandmother who lent my father the cash for the water view lot on Marthas Vineyard was a businesswoman and a renter, but she had cash.
326   Patrick   2020 Sep 5, 12:47pm  

clambo says
I have the dough, but I’m greedy. I want real capital gains that I can actually use.
The equity in your house is useless unless you 1. Move 2. Take in boarders 3. Reverse mortgage.


Agreed. I did pretty well in the stock market, at this point far ahead of where I would be had I bought a house.

Now I have the cash, mostly stock actually, but I'm definitely not going to buy in California. California's prospects are terrible as long as Democrats are in power here.
327   Patrick   2020 Sep 5, 12:51pm  

Ceffer says
Majority of the population spend everything they have on bling and monster trucks.


Yes, there are a lot of idiots who make themselves poor through bad decisions. No one else's fault.

I think this woman's plan is good basic advice for them, black, white, or whatever:

http://urbancure.org/success

#1 Finish School
#2 Take Any Job
#3 Get Married
#4 Save and Invest
#5 Give Back to Your Neighborhood
328   Dholliday126   2020 Sep 5, 2:52pm  

You can always pull money out of your house in a refi or borrow against your equity for like nothing these days. I agree cash is king, but pure cash deflates at x% a year. It has to be invested, plus it's a debt and borrowers world, might as well play the game. The Fed will always screw savers and favor the borrowers or else the whole thing collapses. It will eventually fail anyhow, but until then, be is assets, a house is just a way to diversify.
329   AD   2020 Sep 5, 3:00pm  

Dholliday126 says
I agree cash is king, but pure cash deflates at x% a year.


That is why I convinced my mom to invest at least in the Vanguard Target Retirement Income Fund (VTINX). It at least provides an annual return of 5.5% with inflation around 2%. And its 70% in investment grade bonds and 30% in stocks.
330   Patrick   2020 Sep 5, 3:46pm  

ad says
Dholliday126 says
I agree cash is king, but pure cash deflates at x% a year.


That is why I convinced my mom to invest at least in the Vanguard Target Retirement Income Fund (VTINX). It at least provides an annual return of 5.5% with inflation around 2%. And its 70% in investment grade bonds and 30% in stocks.


@ad Why do you think it provides an annual return of 5.5%?

Yahoo Finance says the yield is 2.29%:

331   Blue   2020 Sep 5, 4:24pm  

Look under Average annual returns which is above 5%.
332   Patrick   2020 Sep 5, 5:01pm  

I was hoping for something with a 5% guaranteed return. I guess that's not possible these days.
333   anonymous   2020 Sep 5, 5:25pm  

KMI patrick. Kinder Morgan looks good! It is an oil pipeline utility.
334   AD   2020 Sep 5, 10:24pm  

Patrick says
@ad Why do you think it provides an annual return of 5.5%?

Yahoo Finance says the yield is 2.29%:


Here you go P-man. The info on VTINX is from Vanguard's website. It has returned an average of 5.48% annually since its inception in 2003.



.
335   AD   2020 Sep 5, 10:28pm  

Patrick says
I was hoping for something with a 5% guaranteed return. I guess that's not possible these days.


Best bet is to get a 70% investment grade bond and 30% stocks fund like VTINX.

Figure over the next 20 years investment grade bonds will yield about 3% annually, and stocks will earn about 10% annually.

total annual return = 70% x 3% + 30% x 10% = 2.1% + 3% = 5.1%

Or a 60% / 40% fund like Vanguard Lifestrategy Conservative Growth Fund.
336   AD   2020 Sep 5, 10:32pm  

Patrick says
I was hoping for something with a 5% guaranteed return. I guess that's not possible these days.


I was being conservative with my above estimation as Vanguard's bond ETF is representative of the bonds held by VTINX.

The ETF (symbol: BND) earned 4.51% annually since its inception in 2007.

https://investor.vanguard.com/etf/profile/BND

The best bet is to put 70% in BND and 30% in Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (symbol : VTI).

Also, you can write covered calls for both BND and VTI.

That way you can buy the Vanguard ETF's through your brokerage instead of the mutual fund.
337   HeadSet   2020 Sep 6, 7:15am  

Patrick says
I was hoping for something with a 5% guaranteed return. I guess that's not possible these days.


True, especially when mortgages are advertised around here at below 3% and car loans for less than 2%.
338   AD   2020 Sep 6, 11:32am  

HeadSet says
True, especially when mortgages are advertised around here at below 3% and car loans for less than 2%.


Banks are still making money. Mortgage origination fee is at least $750. I suspect for car loans it is $500.

Also think about the average duration of the loans. I think mortgages usually get paid off in 7 to 8 years based on people moving.

Car loans get paid off within 5 to 7 years.

....
339   HeadSet   2020 Sep 6, 2:04pm  

Car loans get paid off within 5 to 7 years.

Wow, that long a term now. I always thought that one should only get a car loan for the first car when one is first starting out,and pay cash for all future cars. And even them, if you need more than 4 years then you are buying something you cannot afford.
340   Patrick   2020 Sep 6, 2:05pm  

Yes, and even if you are first starting out, you should not take on a car loan at all unless the car is truly essential to getting you to work or school.
342   Patrick   2021 Mar 24, 10:31pm  

Bump, just for old time's sake.
343   Ceffer   2021 Mar 25, 12:09am  

Ah!!! Hearkens back to the time when Patrick was a callow, idealistic liberal. Now, we are so proud of him as a hardened, pitiless Nazi (just joking, Pat, you are more enlightened Centrist).
344   Patrick   2021 Mar 25, 8:44am  

Thanks. I think I'm just more in touch with reality now.
345   kmail   2021 Mar 25, 9:04am  

HA... this thread survived the pandemic! :o

So how are you all preparing for the coming market and r/e crash? how about for touted the inflation and deflation w/all this monopoly money printing and spending? I'm hoping to be prepared for the coming financial armageddon... hoping to find some decent deals in r/e this next round of disaster :o
346   Patrick   2021 Mar 25, 12:17pm  

@kmail

I'm 75% stock and 25% cash. If the stock market crashes, OK, I can wait quite a long time for it to recover.

And if it goes up, that's fine too.

Stocks are some protection against inflation, especially those that take a percentage of a transaction, like credit card processors.

Cash is some protection against any stock market crash. You can think of cash as going up in value as stocks fall.

I'm still not going to buy a house unless it's a better deal than renting the same thing in the same area.
347   RWSGFY   2021 Mar 25, 1:23pm  

kmail says
the coming market and r/e crash?


Got a timeframe for these two juicy events?
348   SunnyvaleCA   2021 Mar 25, 1:59pm  

I think the most sage advice from the original post of this thread is: "It is far better to pay a low price with a high interest rate than a high price with a low interest rate."

That adage runs both ways in that, when you want to sell, it's far better to sell during a time of low interest rates (which means high prices).

When this discussion started (July 2015) the 30-year fixed mortgage was a little over 4%. Now it's under 3%. My shack has put on an impressive 40% gain in that time. Almost all of that gain can be explained by a general 2% annual general inflation plus the 25% reduction in mortgage interest. An additional bonus for me is all the people fleeing the hellhole cities and pumping up demand in the suburbs. Let the good times roll.
349   mell   2021 Mar 25, 2:06pm  

SunnyvaleCA says
I think the most sage advice from the original post of this thread is: "It is far better to pay a low price with a high interest rate than a high price with a low interest rate."

That adage runs both ways in that, when you want to sell, it's far better to sell during a time of low interest rates (which means high prices).

When this discussion started (July 2015) the 30-year fixed mortgage was a little over 4%. Now it's under 3%. My shack has put on an impressive 40% gain in that time. Almost all of that gain can be explained by a general 2% annual general inflation plus the 25% reduction in mortgage interest. An additional bonus for me is all the people fleeing the hellhole cities and pumping up demand in the suburbs. Let the good times roll.


Recently rates have crept above 3% again on avg., but with stellar credit you can still get just slightly below 3%. Also CA is an anomaly in many areas, there are often simply no places to rent for a family, so you just have to buy. The chronically low supply of houses (and to a lesser degree rentals) feeds its own dynamic. Housing markets really are local, stocks generally aren't. I don't see any housing crash on the horizon, neither a stock market crash though I'm more bearish on stocks, it will probably be a sideways market with slight downward pressure, but certainly no crash in sight yet. We have to re-evaluate in 2H21, but likely nothing will change dramatically into 2022.
350   Tenpoundbass   2021 Mar 25, 4:44pm  

I paid off my Mortgage just in time, that my company moved my apps to MS Dev Opps so my position has been downgraded to consulting on 1099, when they need my input on the conversion.
And now at this point with my mortgage paid off, I'm taking time off to make life living hell for RINOS and Fuck Faces everywhere.
I figure I got about two years cushion, I can dedicate to making sure everyone in America is paying attention if their local election precinct has a party representative, that they can trust, or have one period. I'm making sure everyone knows Voting is NOT being part of the Citizen Legislature, that the Constitution guarantees.
The Committees pick out the outfits to chose from, and voters just merely point at the one with the flashiest colors.
If you want skin in the game, get down to your RNC or DNC local skullduggery session and vote them out f you don't like what you're seeing, or join if you're precinct isn't represented.
351   GreaterNYCDude   2021 Mar 26, 8:21am  

I refinanced earlier this year. Didn't want to but at the time I was between jobs and needed to lower the monthly nut. Now I have a new 30 yr fixed at 2.75%. Plan on paying it off in under 10 years. Yes I realize I could simply invest the money rather than paying off extra principal, but the peace of mind of having the house free and clear has inherent value (at least to me) and frankly market is due for a correction at some point*

* not investment advice
352   GreaterNYCDude   2021 Mar 26, 8:22am  

It amazes me that rates have been this low for this long. Strange times.
353   RC2006   2021 Mar 26, 8:27am  

GreaterNYCDude says
It amazes me that rates have been this low for this long. Strange times.


Crazy I yearn for the days of 10+%
354   Tenpoundbass   2021 Mar 26, 8:31am  

GreaterNYCDude says
Plan on paying it off in under 10 years. Yes I realize I could simply invest the money rather than paying off extra principal


There isn't anything you could invest in, that would give you greater yields than paying off your mortgage.

That notion is an old relic from when banks paid you to save, and your mortgage payment was far cheaper than rent.
The common thinking was, the house was appreciating and if put so much of your cash in payments, then you flipped the house.
They considered all of that hard cash you put in the house a waste.

If your house is not an investment and you plan on staying in it until you aren't. Then pay it off.
That mortgage payment you're not paying every month after you've paid off the house. To me anyway, is like the bank giving me back $1700 every month now.
Because I don't have to pay it. Plus my house is worth double what I paid for it. And I'm not all in on interest, as if had kept to the payment schedule.
Instead of paying over $550 over the course of my $160 mortgage, I only paid in about $280K, I would have paid a lot less had I started doubling my payments straight away instead of waiting five years in. It then took me about 5 years to pay it off.
355   RWSGFY   2021 Mar 26, 8:37am  

Tenpoundbass says
There isn't anything you could invest in, that would give you greater yields than paying off your mortgage.


With mortgage interest locked at 2.5-3%? Really?
356   Patrick   2021 Mar 26, 8:51am  

There is another dimension to interest rates: the probability you are actually going to get paid.

When you pay off debt, that probability is 100%. This is even better than US Treasuries, which could conceivably default.

Junk bonds pay very high interest rates because the probability you are actually going to get that interest and get your money back is rather low.
357   Eric Holder   2021 Mar 26, 8:54am  

Patrick says
When you pay off debt, that probability is 100%.


There is a such thing as playing it too safe. Paying off early a 2.5% mortgage is one of these.
358   stereotomy   2021 Mar 26, 10:34am  

The problem with essentially 0% interest rates is that the old canard about gold not earning interest is now moot. Now that Basel 3 is in effect, who knows how this will play out wrt the "barbarous relic."
359   kmail   2021 Mar 26, 10:50am  

Patrick says
@kmail

I'm 75% stock and 25% cash. If the stock market crashes, OK, I can wait quite a long time for it to recover.

And if it goes up, that's fine too.

Stocks are some protection against inflation, especially those that take a percentage of a transaction, like credit card processors.

Cash is some protection against any stock market crash. You can think of cash as going up in value as stocks fall.

I'm still not going to buy a house unless it's a better deal than renting the same thing in the same area.


@patrick Yes, that seems like a good approach to have some liquid. I've heard buffet had recently adjusted his portfolio to be 60% in stocks and 40% in cash for when the market crashes and there's a buying opportunity. I'm so 10++ years behind in last following stocks. I've forgotten everything. I've heard the great buying opportunities in corrections and crashes... right now i have to focus on building capital to even invest. haha.. i have my money currently parked in wealthfront bot trading for now.
360   rocketjoe79   2021 Mar 26, 10:54am  

I'm trying to convince my wife to sell, pocket the 1-time proceeds, rent for a while, and buy back in after the coming price crash. But she thinks renting is "perpetual moving" and "we're at the mercy of the landlord!" Fear keeps her from many a good deal.

Alternatively, why shouldn't I take out a large HELOC at 4% and invest the proceeds? Yeah, I know there is risk but couldn't I make 7-8% in an annuity? Seems like a no-brainer.

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