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I'm a 39 year renter flush with cash from 15 years of a professional job while living in austerity for the entire time. Soliciting free advice. You sound bulli

I'm a 39 year renter flush with cash from 15 years of a professional job while living in austerity for the entire time. Soliciting free advice. You sound bullish so I wanted to share five risks in the short term that have been on my mind lately: 1) Evictions now allowed in 43 states after a pandemic moratorium on them. My state allowed them October 3rd. Supply. 2) A China conflict at any point. Disruption. 3) Taxes going up on the wealthy. Disruption. 4) Rates going up to counter inflation. I want this one since I have cash and don't care if rates are 2% or 20%. While I do want the free loan (2%), I prefer the market to crash. Disruption. 5) Vaccine mandate job losses. Supply. Given this, I've been extremely hesitant lately. So I've been trying to hold off until January for my purchase to see how correct I am, or not, on these risks impacting the market. I don't see the point in waiting years as rent drains about $18,000 a year and you have to balance that with home ownership costs. Even with repairs, I don't mind slightly overpaying if it means getting out of rent slavery. I'm also buying a home that I can nearly buy outright. I'm determined to never lose a home due to job loss, tired of working for someone else, so a 30-year mortgage isn't happening under any circumstance. 15-year only. The one way I've been trying to protect myself is at least seeking a 15% discount off market rate for any home that I do purchase. I see that happening in my city enough that I'm confident. Eats into the 40% buffer from 2019, so I'm still at significant risk but does take some bite off in the event of a market catastrophe. Any thoughts are welcome. Definitely would appreciate it. Whether the answer is: buy now, or, buy in 15 years. I'll try to integrate them into my view and choices.

hnbalsamicw 5y ago
same situ as you almost exactly :)
traceddd 5y ago
Personally I went through a lot of the same considerations and the indecision and flip flopping got quite tiring. Eventually I just simplified things. Living in a property you own gives so much more for your money compared to what one could afford at the same level renting. And on a long enough timeline crashes have had minimal impact. Many of those disruptions would affect the financial markets too so unless you’re extremely conservative leaving the money in stocks is not very safe either. I’m not renting for another 5 to 15 years with a small place and a nosey landlord jacking up rent regularly. So I bought.
- aeternum 5y ago
  >Living in a property you own gives so much more for your money This isn't true everywhere. Prop13 in California for example means that a long-time owner can rent out a property at below market and still make money since they're paying near-zero property tax. Both the renter and landlord come out ahead.
randomopining 5y ago
What's your dilemma? If you're gonna live there for 10 years, get a large utility out of the house in general and also owning your own place, then just go for it. If you're buying just to buy, then hold off.
- BuckRogers 5y ago
  My dilemma is balancing inflation risks through all this increased government spending, with short-term market timing. I think that these risks are more likely than ever, and imminent. On the inflation risks. I really wish the Democrats would cancel all their ideas about child care and what not, and just shift the tax burden from the working class that punch a clock, to the investment class that live off of IRS-defined unearned income. So much easier, simpler, doesn't engage in designing society, rewards working, helps the economy more than anything else you could do through increased spending, and would be far more popular. But that's an aside.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    The specifics of your aside aren't especially interesting here, but they are quite important to you before making such a large investment. My time machine's just as good as yours, and anyone that claims their's is any better is trying to sell you something. Risks is inherent in everything. If I were trying to sell anything "rock solid" in Feb 2020; it's possible time would have proven that to be a total lie. If you have a great mistrust of the future, then there's never going to be a good time to buy a house. If you think politicians are going to mess things up yet again, buying a house is foolish. Hanging off every word the next three or four presidents make is going to make your heart sink and your blood pressure rise on bad news, and curse the name of whomever convinced you to buy an millstone of a house to hang around your neck. If, however, you're convinced that buying a house (for you to live in, not as part of a basically-liquid REIT) is your path to financial freedom, then when the refrigerator or other large appliance breaks, that's just part of owning a home, and you'll relish in picking the one you want. How do you want to live for the next few years? (One thing to keep in mind is that houses can be sold before the full 15-30 years is up, which may be advantageous, depending on your finances.)
mediaman 5y ago
A note on the mortgage: I understand your aversion to debt, but choosing a shorter duration mortgage can increase the probability of default, even if it shortens the time to the point that you are debt free, because for any given amount of cash reserves you have it shortens the runway you have if you lose your income. As long as mortgage money is cheap, the most profitable course of action is to use the 30 year mortgage, but keep a large chunk of money in reserve and invest the rest in the market for the long term. And never allow yourself to not be well-cushioned. Debt gets people in trouble when they use it to get things that put them on the edge, where losing a job causes them to miss a payment. For people who stay far away from the edge, and are good with money, it's very profitable.
- BuckRogers 5y ago
  I haven't done it for a while but when I last compared 15 to 30 year rates the interest was outrageous, pure usury, for the 30 year. But that isn't my main motivation to sticking to a 15 year, it's just a mechanism to limit how much I can borrow and spend. It caps me at a reasonable amount without me having to think about it, while granting a lower interest rate. It just nicely lines up with an amount that my spouse or I can afford with even one job, or a very basic low paying job. I'm definitely doing what you're suggesting and staying away from the edge.
  - mediaman 5y ago
    True, with a 30 year it looks like you're paying a lot of interest, and in nominal terms (i.e., the total amount during the loan), you are. But consider a thought experiment where you could borrow $1m at a low rate of interest, suppose 3%, from a generous lender who requires no collateral and requires an amortizing repayment. You take the $1m and reserve, say, $100k in "no-touch" cash (your cushion) and invest the remainder in the market, and suppose that the market returns an average of 7% over the long run. In this scenario, you obviously pay much more interest than not taking the loan. The interest you pay is nearly $500k, which sounds like a lot - almost half the loan! Yet you make a tidy profit over 30 years: after paying back the loan, you have a portfolio worth over $4 million, plus the $100k reserve you still have. While that's just a thought experiment, the math works fairly similarly for a mortgage. So long as the market returns more (over the long term - it'll be bumpy short term) than the cost of money, you will be paid handsomely for assuming lots of long-term, fixed low-interest debt and investing the proceeds. And this leads to a second surprising conclusion: you should not pay off your mortgage. Once you've built equity, releverage the house and borrow more, so long as you take the proceeds and invest it in an instrument that will pay more than the cost of money over the long run. If interest rates rise, the math might not work. This is bad advice for some people, because a pile of savings and investments can be a tempting target to use for luxury vehicles, or boats or whatever, and that can upset the math, although eventually you make enough with it that might be OK. But for people who can live as if those investments were illiquid, it's quite a rewarding path. And for some people, the psychological value of living in a house with no mortgage exceeds whatever financial gains come from continuing to pay for a mortgage. And while there's nothing wrong with that, it does come at a stiff financial cost.
dboreham 5y ago
Just a note to say that the term for a mortgage in the USA is really up to the borrower. This is because you are permitted to pay back more than the specified loan repayment, any time you like. So you can make a 30-year loan into a 20 year loan if you want, or any term shorter than 30 years. The main benefit to a 15-year loan is that it (usually) has a lower interest rate than the equivalent 30-year loan.
- pempem 5y ago
  There is often a penalty for balloon payments. Please do check that out.
  - ihattendorf 5y ago
    While you should always confirm this, I don't think they're that common any more. We purchased around a year ago and none of the options we looked at had prepayment penalties.
mullingitover 5y ago
> 4) Rates going up to counter inflation. I want this one since I have cash and don't care if rates are 2% or 20%. You're likely making a bad bet by holding on to cash. The inflation and low rates are doing their job for the most part by driving investment and spending, and you're swimming against the current by doing exactly what you're not supposed to be doing: hoarding cash. > 5) Vaccine mandate job losses. Supply. We're already back to full employment. These threats of en masse departures haven't really materialized, the few who haven't caved are just helping newer employment market entrants by offering up some nice safe jobs.
- BuckRogers 5y ago
  That's what this is about, getting rid of my cash. As I mentioned to someone else, before inflation kicks in bigtime, and timed around these risk factors. I've hoarded cash up until this point almost accidentally, I've just been too busy working to spend. I do like a cushion, but not the cushion I have now. On the mandate job losses, I think a lot remains to be seen. We have the airline issue going on right now, and I think that's directly related. Not sure there's any in-person "nice safe job" honestly. This is so far from being over in regards to variants, there's just no sense in all this. The only mandate people need is a mandate on employers that any job that can be done at home, shall be done at home. Then mandating hazard pay for those that must do their jobs in-person. Those are the only mandates that make sense to me, and I would hope that by Jove, even our most brainwashed vaccine-loving brethren could get onboard with.
  - mullingitover 5y ago
    It's really easy to get your cash into a real estate ETF, giving you exposure to that market without any of the fuss or commitment of tying everything up with one property. > Those are the only mandates that make sense to me, and I would hope that by Jove, even our most brainwashed vaccine-loving brethren could get onboard with. I'm afraid that on a planet with 8ish billion meat-based life forms of extremely similar cellular makeup, vaccine mandates are going to be the norm going forward. Covid won't be the last pandemic, and vaccines are the best defense we have against them. It's not brainwashing to accept vaccination as a countermeasure, it's very clear-eyed realism.
lordnacho 5y ago
I'd say number 2 is a long shot. Political risk is not terribly simple. Eg I worked for a firm that thought the Iraq war would mean oil would rocket and markets crater, didn't go down that way. Point is even if the thing you think will happen happens, the effect is not as obvious as you think. More examples are the monthly NFP figures, you might naively think job losses means economy is doing badly, thus market goes down. But it's rarely that clear. 4 you have to ask yourself about real rates, not nominal rates. Yes you want to get paid interest, but you also have a loss on inflation. Also, you pay tax on nominal but you don't get a credit on inflation. What you really want to think about is whether rates will get so high that people can't afford to refinance, and are thus forced to sell. As sad as it sounds, you may want to look into that forced seller thing. When someone hits hard times, it gets even harder due to them having to sell at a loss compared to the market, which for you as a buyer is straight up money in your pocket. See about your local foreclosure markets, I think a lot of them might still be done in an old fashioned show-up-in-real-life and shout way. Depends on where you live. Finally, it's good to list risks as you do. The big question though, is always whether the market already reflects your thoughts.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  >forced seller This takes a bit more patience though. They can drag on for a while as the bank & "owner" possibly reconcile or the owner fights things tooth & nail. These deals tend to fall through a bit more than traditional sales. Given patience though, you can get a good deal: Banks don't want to be in the business of actually owning houses & their carrying costs, so they generally sell at a market-clearing rate instead of waiting for the best possible offer.
- bink 5y ago
  2 is not only a long shot but it's also not like if there were a third world war there would be some asset classes that escaped unscathed. If China went to war and that somehow crashed real estate prices, it's not like stocks would be soaring.
  - BuckRogers 5y ago
    My scenario isn't meant to be WW3. It's just a conflict over Taiwan, presuming that it doesn't spiral into WW3. WW3 changes everything in such ways, my home ownership doesn't matter. Good chance my city is bombed and I die. What I'm focused on is the chance of a temporary dip in the market as I'm interested in buying in the short term (12-24 months). How into the geopolitics of China-US relations are you? I ask because my reason that we're at high risk for a conflict and now low over Taiwan is that China just upgraded their navy, while we have a refresh going on right now. Once that investment is complete China will have essentially the window closed on any hope of winning the conflict. They have to move relatively quickly to have a realistic chance at taking over Taiwan, if US determination is resolute in stopping them at least. It could happen at any time.
ineedasername 5y ago
Are you investing or looking to move? If it's the later, none of the issues mentioned matter as much because it's all paper money once you buy. You haven't lost or gained anything unless you anticipate the need to resell the home in the near future (in which case, yes, be a little more careful). That said, my advice is not "buy now". I don't know your specifics, those of your area, etc. Home ownership & maintaining a home is also very different than renting. So, what follows are response to your individual points, not justifications for why you should buy now: 1) This will impact rentals much more than home sales, and evicted renters aren't going to increase demand in the home sales market. It's also a positive factor if you're buying: Don't be in a hurry, wait 2-3 months to see how the end of the moratorium impacts supply. If supply increases, sticker price should go down-- you win. 2) This seems too vague of a threat to factor in. Neither side wants an all out trade war (though idiot meaningless wars have been waged before) If you mean military? Well, anything significant enough to trickle into the housing market may not spare you as a renter either. Outcomes in that scenario are beyond the event horizon. If you really think that's a significant enough threat to factor into home buying decisions then you should be buying a home way outside of urban circle-- one with solar power, well water & purification, and two levels of basement for all of your prepper material. 3) Easy enough: factor that possibility in to what you're willing to spend. Let's say a worst case is a 10% increase to your marginal rate. Unless you're over $400k/year that is very unlikely anyway from the (still too few) details I've seen out of congress. 4) Okay, just don't crash the market on purpose. The rest of us have to live here too 5) From areas (NYC) that have implemented these mandates, non-compliance has been very small. And I'm willing to bet that extremely few hold outs are from people who would lose their home & suffer economic ruin over a refusal. Anyway, there's a simple solution here too: wait 2-3 months to see how they shake out.
theflork 5y ago
I'm a mid 30s renter also flush with cash, living in a high COL area. I have found a happy (to me) medium - I invest all of it diversified across low to high risk assets (muni bonds, i bonds, tips, mREITs, dividend stocks, stablecoins, growth stocks), and at this point just the interest/dividends (NOT counting unrealized gains!) almost cover even my crazy rent (3500/month, for the house we are renting which is valued at about 1.5m). I just don't have the time or the energy for a house. Also a house doesn't MAKE anything other than provide shelter. Psychologically it doesn't make much sense to me to "invest" in a single house, tied to one area, such a large % of my networth. My friends bought houses recently, and even the "flips" turned out to be fixer/uppers. The supply is so bad right now you can really get burned. Once the supply improves - and really this means most of the government distortions disappear, I would reconsider. By government distortions i mean specifically 0) stimulus checks 1) extra unemployment (bonus monthly $, extra time, and expanding benefits to people that would not have otherwise been covered) 2) mortgage forbearance programs 3) student loan forbearance 4) super low rates. i agree at one point these distortions were necessary when we were all hunkered down and hospitals were being overrun, but we are far from that these days.
TheMagicHorsey 5y ago
I'm 45 and in the same boat as you ... except I've been waiting for a crash since 2016. I also made the mistake of keeping my cash in very cautious investments (and out of the SP500) ... thus missing the most historic bull run of my lifetime. Regardless though, as a result of working at a successful unicorn and selling a lot of my equity on the secondary market, I ended up benefitting from the Fed's insane money printing anyway (the prices offered for my equity doubled and doubled again in 24 months). I'm now sitting on a pile of cash. I invested a small amount (about 25%) into stocks (mostly REITs and dividend yielding stocks), but the rest I left in cash with the hopes of buying a home without debt (I can always take out a mortgage later to invest). But the homes just keep increasing in value. The homes I looked at in 2016 in the Bay Area that were 600K are now 1.5M and up. I took my family out of the Bay Area into the Sacramento area, and even here houses have gone up 30% in the last year. Houses that were 800K are now going for about 1.2M. But I'm still being patient. Now we're looking to leave the state entirely. I could buy a home here, but I'm looking at the economics for someone who is entry level or working a blue collar job (or being a teacher or caretaker), and I realize I don't want to live here. Apart from housing, I also have to think about what kind of teachers my kids will have, what kind of chefs will be at resteraunts, etc. A California that is unaffordable for everyone but me is a lame place to live. After checking out Texas, Colorado, and Florida, we've decided we'll get way better value for our money, in terms of lifestyle for the family if we leave. California is bad and only getting worse.
- BuckRogers 5y ago
  You likely have a lot more money than I do, from what you said. I did live in a couple of major cities in Texas over the course of 5 years. I'd recommend the Dallas area. Easily one of my favorite areas in the country, especially for someone starting off. Doing it all over again, knowing what I know now, I might have moved there long ago and stayed. It has also exploded though, but probably nothing near CA proportions. I also like Washington State but have only visited once. I took multiple trips to Oregon in consideration of moving there, but declined in the end. CA is where I'd live if money is no object. I share your holistic view, I don't want everyone around me suffering and acting tense. Its been that way in most of the country for a couple of decades now. A lot of people must really enjoy that, but I don't really see a true benefit to holding everyone down in such a way. To get a fairer society means less profits for employers so there's a lot of effort to contain those costs. My spouse is a teacher so I know what you mean, though teachers are fairly compensated where I live for sure. She makes more than I do with better benefits by a longshot. Most public school teachers in big cities are bad because the families/students are bad, and they have no authority to discipline them. Most teachers that care don't last and go teach for less money in the suburbs. I'm in Chicago and while dangerous in 80% of the city, if you lived in the suburbs and don't mind winter, I've never known anyone that doesn't like it here. It's my favorite city in the country, it's the only city that the times I've driven out to move or visit elsewhere that I felt heartbroken. The only other place I've lived where I felt that way was France. I've lived all over and multiple countries on top of it. Crime and undesirable weather for most people keeps costs down here. I like Florida but it's such a diverse state that each area needs examined by itself. Just some thoughts. My thoughts on buying for you are the same for me: at least wait until January. There's just too many near-term risks. My conclusion has been if things are still the exact same as today in Q1 2022, then go ahead and buy, my crystal ball is broken. That said, I'm deal hunting so if I can get anything for 15% off going rate or more, I'll probably just do it. I'm looking at homes that are in blue collar neighborhoods.
jartelt 5y ago
1) A large increase in evictions will mostly affect the rental market. There would be some single family home rentals affected, but mostly it would affect apartments. A lot of homeowners who needed help during the start of the pandemic were able to get a forbearance on their mortgage. Thus, there was not a huge increase in foreclosures and instead people just had extra payments tacked onto the end of their mortgage. 3) If anything, wealthy homeowners are getting a tax break. Congress is considering a repeal of the SALT deduction limit, which helps homeowners. 5) The number of people who were fired or quit due to mandates has been very small.
bcrosby95 5y ago
I bought back in 2014. Ultimately the question I asked myself was: would I rather have a house in a place I wanted to live but overpaid for, or would I rather wait and get priced out of the place I wanted to live? Ultimately I chose the former. Because at the end of the day, a house represents shelter to me. And roughly speaking, shelter is fungible. If the value of my shelter goes up by 50%, the value of the other shelter around me goes up 50%. If it goes down by 50%, so does the shelter around me. So buying into the market gives me a foot in the door to, roughly speaking, be able to move to similarly desirable dwellings regardless of where they are. This is obviously a bit simplistic, but I think its a fair way to look at it.

hnbalsamicw 5y ago

same situ as you almost exactly :)

traceddd 5y ago

Personally I went through a lot of the same considerations and the indecision and flip flopping got quite tiring. Eventually I just simplified things. Living in a property you own gives so much more for your money compared to what one could afford at the same level renting. And on a long enough timeline crashes have had minimal impact. Many of those disruptions would affect the financial markets too so unless you’re extremely conservative leaving the money in stocks is not very safe either. I’m not renting for another 5 to 15 years with a small place and a nosey landlord jacking up rent regularly. So I bought.

aeternum 5y ago
>Living in a property you own gives so much more for your money This isn't true everywhere. Prop13 in California for example means that a long-time owner can rent out a property at below market and still make money since they're paying near-zero property tax. Both the renter and landlord come out ahead.

randomopining 5y ago

What's your dilemma? If you're gonna live there for 10 years, get a large utility out of the house in general and also owning your own place, then just go for it. If you're buying just to buy, then hold off.

BuckRogers 5y ago
My dilemma is balancing inflation risks through all this increased government spending, with short-term market timing. I think that these risks are more likely than ever, and imminent. On the inflation risks. I really wish the Democrats would cancel all their ideas about child care and what not, and just shift the tax burden from the working class that punch a clock, to the investment class that live off of IRS-defined unearned income. So much easier, simpler, doesn't engage in designing society, rewards working, helps the economy more than anything else you could do through increased spending, and would be far more popular. But that's an aside.
- fragmede 5y ago
  The specifics of your aside aren't especially interesting here, but they are quite important to you before making such a large investment. My time machine's just as good as yours, and anyone that claims their's is any better is trying to sell you something. Risks is inherent in everything. If I were trying to sell anything "rock solid" in Feb 2020; it's possible time would have proven that to be a total lie. If you have a great mistrust of the future, then there's never going to be a good time to buy a house. If you think politicians are going to mess things up yet again, buying a house is foolish. Hanging off every word the next three or four presidents make is going to make your heart sink and your blood pressure rise on bad news, and curse the name of whomever convinced you to buy an millstone of a house to hang around your neck. If, however, you're convinced that buying a house (for you to live in, not as part of a basically-liquid REIT) is your path to financial freedom, then when the refrigerator or other large appliance breaks, that's just part of owning a home, and you'll relish in picking the one you want. How do you want to live for the next few years? (One thing to keep in mind is that houses can be sold before the full 15-30 years is up, which may be advantageous, depending on your finances.)

mediaman 5y ago

A note on the mortgage: I understand your aversion to debt, but choosing a shorter duration mortgage can increase the probability of default, even if it shortens the time to the point that you are debt free, because for any given amount of cash reserves you have it shortens the runway you have if you lose your income. As long as mortgage money is cheap, the most profitable course of action is to use the 30 year mortgage, but keep a large chunk of money in reserve and invest the rest in the market for the long term. And never allow yourself to not be well-cushioned. Debt gets people in trouble when they use it to get things that put them on the edge, where losing a job causes them to miss a payment. For people who stay far away from the edge, and are good with money, it's very profitable.

BuckRogers 5y ago
I haven't done it for a while but when I last compared 15 to 30 year rates the interest was outrageous, pure usury, for the 30 year. But that isn't my main motivation to sticking to a 15 year, it's just a mechanism to limit how much I can borrow and spend. It caps me at a reasonable amount without me having to think about it, while granting a lower interest rate. It just nicely lines up with an amount that my spouse or I can afford with even one job, or a very basic low paying job. I'm definitely doing what you're suggesting and staying away from the edge.
- mediaman 5y ago
  True, with a 30 year it looks like you're paying a lot of interest, and in nominal terms (i.e., the total amount during the loan), you are. But consider a thought experiment where you could borrow $1m at a low rate of interest, suppose 3%, from a generous lender who requires no collateral and requires an amortizing repayment. You take the $1m and reserve, say, $100k in "no-touch" cash (your cushion) and invest the remainder in the market, and suppose that the market returns an average of 7% over the long run. In this scenario, you obviously pay much more interest than not taking the loan. The interest you pay is nearly $500k, which sounds like a lot - almost half the loan! Yet you make a tidy profit over 30 years: after paying back the loan, you have a portfolio worth over $4 million, plus the $100k reserve you still have. While that's just a thought experiment, the math works fairly similarly for a mortgage. So long as the market returns more (over the long term - it'll be bumpy short term) than the cost of money, you will be paid handsomely for assuming lots of long-term, fixed low-interest debt and investing the proceeds. And this leads to a second surprising conclusion: you should not pay off your mortgage. Once you've built equity, releverage the house and borrow more, so long as you take the proceeds and invest it in an instrument that will pay more than the cost of money over the long run. If interest rates rise, the math might not work. This is bad advice for some people, because a pile of savings and investments can be a tempting target to use for luxury vehicles, or boats or whatever, and that can upset the math, although eventually you make enough with it that might be OK. But for people who can live as if those investments were illiquid, it's quite a rewarding path. And for some people, the psychological value of living in a house with no mortgage exceeds whatever financial gains come from continuing to pay for a mortgage. And while there's nothing wrong with that, it does come at a stiff financial cost.

dboreham 5y ago

Just a note to say that the term for a mortgage in the USA is really up to the borrower. This is because you are permitted to pay back more than the specified loan repayment, any time you like. So you can make a 30-year loan into a 20 year loan if you want, or any term shorter than 30 years. The main benefit to a 15-year loan is that it (usually) has a lower interest rate than the equivalent 30-year loan.

pempem 5y ago
There is often a penalty for balloon payments. Please do check that out.
- ihattendorf 5y ago
  While you should always confirm this, I don't think they're that common any more. We purchased around a year ago and none of the options we looked at had prepayment penalties.

mullingitover 5y ago

> 4) Rates going up to counter inflation. I want this one since I have cash and don't care if rates are 2% or 20%. You're likely making a bad bet by holding on to cash. The inflation and low rates are doing their job for the most part by driving investment and spending, and you're swimming against the current by doing exactly what you're not supposed to be doing: hoarding cash. > 5) Vaccine mandate job losses. Supply. We're already back to full employment. These threats of en masse departures haven't really materialized, the few who haven't caved are just helping newer employment market entrants by offering up some nice safe jobs.

BuckRogers 5y ago
That's what this is about, getting rid of my cash. As I mentioned to someone else, before inflation kicks in bigtime, and timed around these risk factors. I've hoarded cash up until this point almost accidentally, I've just been too busy working to spend. I do like a cushion, but not the cushion I have now. On the mandate job losses, I think a lot remains to be seen. We have the airline issue going on right now, and I think that's directly related. Not sure there's any in-person "nice safe job" honestly. This is so far from being over in regards to variants, there's just no sense in all this. The only mandate people need is a mandate on employers that any job that can be done at home, shall be done at home. Then mandating hazard pay for those that must do their jobs in-person. Those are the only mandates that make sense to me, and I would hope that by Jove, even our most brainwashed vaccine-loving brethren could get onboard with.
- mullingitover 5y ago
  It's really easy to get your cash into a real estate ETF, giving you exposure to that market without any of the fuss or commitment of tying everything up with one property. > Those are the only mandates that make sense to me, and I would hope that by Jove, even our most brainwashed vaccine-loving brethren could get onboard with. I'm afraid that on a planet with 8ish billion meat-based life forms of extremely similar cellular makeup, vaccine mandates are going to be the norm going forward. Covid won't be the last pandemic, and vaccines are the best defense we have against them. It's not brainwashing to accept vaccination as a countermeasure, it's very clear-eyed realism.

lordnacho 5y ago

I'd say number 2 is a long shot. Political risk is not terribly simple. Eg I worked for a firm that thought the Iraq war would mean oil would rocket and markets crater, didn't go down that way. Point is even if the thing you think will happen happens, the effect is not as obvious as you think. More examples are the monthly NFP figures, you might naively think job losses means economy is doing badly, thus market goes down. But it's rarely that clear. 4 you have to ask yourself about real rates, not nominal rates. Yes you want to get paid interest, but you also have a loss on inflation. Also, you pay tax on nominal but you don't get a credit on inflation. What you really want to think about is whether rates will get so high that people can't afford to refinance, and are thus forced to sell. As sad as it sounds, you may want to look into that forced seller thing. When someone hits hard times, it gets even harder due to them having to sell at a loss compared to the market, which for you as a buyer is straight up money in your pocket. See about your local foreclosure markets, I think a lot of them might still be done in an old fashioned show-up-in-real-life and shout way. Depends on where you live. Finally, it's good to list risks as you do. The big question though, is always whether the market already reflects your thoughts.

ineedasername 5y ago
>forced seller This takes a bit more patience though. They can drag on for a while as the bank & "owner" possibly reconcile or the owner fights things tooth & nail. These deals tend to fall through a bit more than traditional sales. Given patience though, you can get a good deal: Banks don't want to be in the business of actually owning houses & their carrying costs, so they generally sell at a market-clearing rate instead of waiting for the best possible offer.
bink 5y ago
2 is not only a long shot but it's also not like if there were a third world war there would be some asset classes that escaped unscathed. If China went to war and that somehow crashed real estate prices, it's not like stocks would be soaring.
- BuckRogers 5y ago
  My scenario isn't meant to be WW3. It's just a conflict over Taiwan, presuming that it doesn't spiral into WW3. WW3 changes everything in such ways, my home ownership doesn't matter. Good chance my city is bombed and I die. What I'm focused on is the chance of a temporary dip in the market as I'm interested in buying in the short term (12-24 months). How into the geopolitics of China-US relations are you? I ask because my reason that we're at high risk for a conflict and now low over Taiwan is that China just upgraded their navy, while we have a refresh going on right now. Once that investment is complete China will have essentially the window closed on any hope of winning the conflict. They have to move relatively quickly to have a realistic chance at taking over Taiwan, if US determination is resolute in stopping them at least. It could happen at any time.

ineedasername 5y ago

Are you investing or looking to move? If it's the later, none of the issues mentioned matter as much because it's all paper money once you buy. You haven't lost or gained anything unless you anticipate the need to resell the home in the near future (in which case, yes, be a little more careful). That said, my advice is not "buy now". I don't know your specifics, those of your area, etc. Home ownership & maintaining a home is also very different than renting. So, what follows are response to your individual points, not justifications for why you should buy now: 1) This will impact rentals much more than home sales, and evicted renters aren't going to increase demand in the home sales market. It's also a positive factor if you're buying: Don't be in a hurry, wait 2-3 months to see how the end of the moratorium impacts supply. If supply increases, sticker price should go down-- you win. 2) This seems too vague of a threat to factor in. Neither side wants an all out trade war (though idiot meaningless wars have been waged before) If you mean military? Well, anything significant enough to trickle into the housing market may not spare you as a renter either. Outcomes in that scenario are beyond the event horizon. If you really think that's a significant enough threat to factor into home buying decisions then you should be buying a home way outside of urban circle-- one with solar power, well water & purification, and two levels of basement for all of your prepper material. 3) Easy enough: factor that possibility in to what you're willing to spend. Let's say a worst case is a 10% increase to your marginal rate. Unless you're over $400k/year that is very unlikely anyway from the (still too few) details I've seen out of congress. 4) Okay, just don't crash the market on purpose. The rest of us have to live here too 5) From areas (NYC) that have implemented these mandates, non-compliance has been very small. And I'm willing to bet that extremely few hold outs are from people who would lose their home & suffer economic ruin over a refusal. Anyway, there's a simple solution here too: wait 2-3 months to see how they shake out.

theflork 5y ago

I'm a mid 30s renter also flush with cash, living in a high COL area. I have found a happy (to me) medium - I invest all of it diversified across low to high risk assets (muni bonds, i bonds, tips, mREITs, dividend stocks, stablecoins, growth stocks), and at this point just the interest/dividends (NOT counting unrealized gains!) almost cover even my crazy rent (3500/month, for the house we are renting which is valued at about 1.5m). I just don't have the time or the energy for a house. Also a house doesn't MAKE anything other than provide shelter. Psychologically it doesn't make much sense to me to "invest" in a single house, tied to one area, such a large % of my networth. My friends bought houses recently, and even the "flips" turned out to be fixer/uppers. The supply is so bad right now you can really get burned. Once the supply improves - and really this means most of the government distortions disappear, I would reconsider. By government distortions i mean specifically 0) stimulus checks 1) extra unemployment (bonus monthly $, extra time, and expanding benefits to people that would not have otherwise been covered) 2) mortgage forbearance programs 3) student loan forbearance 4) super low rates. i agree at one point these distortions were necessary when we were all hunkered down and hospitals were being overrun, but we are far from that these days.

TheMagicHorsey 5y ago

I'm 45 and in the same boat as you ... except I've been waiting for a crash since 2016. I also made the mistake of keeping my cash in very cautious investments (and out of the SP500) ... thus missing the most historic bull run of my lifetime. Regardless though, as a result of working at a successful unicorn and selling a lot of my equity on the secondary market, I ended up benefitting from the Fed's insane money printing anyway (the prices offered for my equity doubled and doubled again in 24 months). I'm now sitting on a pile of cash. I invested a small amount (about 25%) into stocks (mostly REITs and dividend yielding stocks), but the rest I left in cash with the hopes of buying a home without debt (I can always take out a mortgage later to invest). But the homes just keep increasing in value. The homes I looked at in 2016 in the Bay Area that were 600K are now 1.5M and up. I took my family out of the Bay Area into the Sacramento area, and even here houses have gone up 30% in the last year. Houses that were 800K are now going for about 1.2M. But I'm still being patient. Now we're looking to leave the state entirely. I could buy a home here, but I'm looking at the economics for someone who is entry level or working a blue collar job (or being a teacher or caretaker), and I realize I don't want to live here. Apart from housing, I also have to think about what kind of teachers my kids will have, what kind of chefs will be at resteraunts, etc. A California that is unaffordable for everyone but me is a lame place to live. After checking out Texas, Colorado, and Florida, we've decided we'll get way better value for our money, in terms of lifestyle for the family if we leave. California is bad and only getting worse.

BuckRogers 5y ago
You likely have a lot more money than I do, from what you said. I did live in a couple of major cities in Texas over the course of 5 years. I'd recommend the Dallas area. Easily one of my favorite areas in the country, especially for someone starting off. Doing it all over again, knowing what I know now, I might have moved there long ago and stayed. It has also exploded though, but probably nothing near CA proportions. I also like Washington State but have only visited once. I took multiple trips to Oregon in consideration of moving there, but declined in the end. CA is where I'd live if money is no object. I share your holistic view, I don't want everyone around me suffering and acting tense. Its been that way in most of the country for a couple of decades now. A lot of people must really enjoy that, but I don't really see a true benefit to holding everyone down in such a way. To get a fairer society means less profits for employers so there's a lot of effort to contain those costs. My spouse is a teacher so I know what you mean, though teachers are fairly compensated where I live for sure. She makes more than I do with better benefits by a longshot. Most public school teachers in big cities are bad because the families/students are bad, and they have no authority to discipline them. Most teachers that care don't last and go teach for less money in the suburbs. I'm in Chicago and while dangerous in 80% of the city, if you lived in the suburbs and don't mind winter, I've never known anyone that doesn't like it here. It's my favorite city in the country, it's the only city that the times I've driven out to move or visit elsewhere that I felt heartbroken. The only other place I've lived where I felt that way was France. I've lived all over and multiple countries on top of it. Crime and undesirable weather for most people keeps costs down here. I like Florida but it's such a diverse state that each area needs examined by itself. Just some thoughts. My thoughts on buying for you are the same for me: at least wait until January. There's just too many near-term risks. My conclusion has been if things are still the exact same as today in Q1 2022, then go ahead and buy, my crystal ball is broken. That said, I'm deal hunting so if I can get anything for 15% off going rate or more, I'll probably just do it. I'm looking at homes that are in blue collar neighborhoods.

jartelt 5y ago

1) A large increase in evictions will mostly affect the rental market. There would be some single family home rentals affected, but mostly it would affect apartments. A lot of homeowners who needed help during the start of the pandemic were able to get a forbearance on their mortgage. Thus, there was not a huge increase in foreclosures and instead people just had extra payments tacked onto the end of their mortgage. 3) If anything, wealthy homeowners are getting a tax break. Congress is considering a repeal of the SALT deduction limit, which helps homeowners. 5) The number of people who were fired or quit due to mandates has been very small.

bcrosby95 5y ago

I bought back in 2014. Ultimately the question I asked myself was: would I rather have a house in a place I wanted to live but overpaid for, or would I rather wait and get priced out of the place I wanted to live? Ultimately I chose the former. Because at the end of the day, a house represents shelter to me. And roughly speaking, shelter is fungible. If the value of my shelter goes up by 50%, the value of the other shelter around me goes up 50%. If it goes down by 50%, so does the shelter around me. So buying into the market gives me a foot in the door to, roughly speaking, be able to move to similarly desirable dwellings regardless of where they are. This is obviously a bit simplistic, but I think its a fair way to look at it.