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@ad Why do you think it provides an annual return of 5.5%?
Yahoo Finance says the yield is 2.29%:
I was hoping for something with a 5% guaranteed return. I guess that's not possible these days.
I was hoping for something with a 5% guaranteed return. I guess that's not possible these days.
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%.
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.
It amazes me that rates have been this low for this long. Strange times.
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.
When you pay off debt, that probability is 100%.
@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.
Alternatively, why shouldn't I take out a large HELOC at 4% and invest the proceeds?
But she thinks renting is "perpetual moving" and "we're at the mercy of the landlord!"
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.
Best 5 Year Fixed Annuity Rates
Nassau Re MYAnnuity 5 Year Annuity: 3.10% for 5 years.
Americo Platinum Assure 5 Year Fixed Annuity: 2.70% for 5 years.
Alternatively, why shouldn't I take out a large HELOC at 4% and invest the proceeds?
kmail saysthe coming market and r/e crash?
Got a timeframe for these two juicy events?
With mortgage interest locked at 2.5-3%? Really?
What 280K investment is going to give you 408K over the next 20 years?
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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