patrick.net

mell says

CA is beautiful (can't beat nature plus climate, and wine) and had my work hard play hard decades there, but I have been trying to convince the rest of the immediate family to move. That being said, there aren't many states with low taxes, but have been eying NH. Savings would be tremendous and tax money not spent cannot be abused.

Thing is cheaper cost of living won’t stay that way. Even now it’s starting to even out. 4 years ago it was cheaper here, steadily climbing because of people moving with lots of money, and that drives up cost of living and it’s starting to become more like a blue state.

I think it’ll all even out in next 10. With distributed economy, and remote workers, you can’t have 100k houses and low cost utilities in one city but 1M and high cost utilities in another for long. It just evens out across the board.

Crossing fingers

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2026/01/16/trump-to-unveil-plan-allowing-401k-withdrawals-for-home-down-payments/

Yes, I sure hope this happens. I have selfish reasons, but I think it's also good for couples that want to buy a house to have babies in.

My only worry is that the new flow of money will drive up house prices to some degree, negating the benefit.

The real solution is to build more houses near where the jobs are.

Yeah we'll see the details next week.

But @Patrick, they're talking about only down payments though, a good step but not the full costs. Well we'll see.

Down payment assistance (which is really what this is) will spike prices in the short term. It will probably be neutral in the longer term as people become a lot more shy about gambling their own retirement money on FOMO feels.

Patrick says

My only worry is that the new flow of money will drive up house prices to some degree, negating the benefit.

That house price rise is a given.

floki says

Crossing fingers

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2026/01/16/trump-to-unveil-plan-allowing-401k-withdrawals-for-home-down-payments/

This is not even click worthy, 10% of what, average median 401(k) balances I believe is below 300K.
Current 401(k) Loan Rules for Home Purchases:
Lesser of 50% or $50K.
It’s fair to assume that all politicians throw nothing burgers at public to get votes.

I'd speculate that many younger home buyers get some help with the downpayments from families, especially on a first home. Maybe just enough help to get into one. For those that do not, this proposal just might be the difference between owning a home or not. It's supposed to be a tax and penalty free withdrawl as opposed to being a loan as is available today so no post-tax repayments taken out of their wages either. Overall, I think that's a good thing for those intent on buying one after having considered all other pros and cons.