[quote=timtoomey]Great info and commentary. I agree that if you have young kids the schools are great and it would be an investment in their future.
When you prepay the CFD, can you use that to sell for a higher price or is it just to save $$ if you plan to live in the house at length?[/quote]
Yes, we purposely decided to buy where we did because we have young kids and the schools are excellent in this area. We weren’t crazy about paying Mello Roos taxes but I felt it was well worth it.
I don’t regret my decision to live where we live for one second and in fact we wake up almost every day so happy we decided to buy where we did. The location is GREAT, the weather is perfect. We avoid the marine layering of nearby Del Mar yet the temperatures are really great and don’t get too hot like once you go further inland. We are literally about 10 minutes from the beach.
I honestly believe that Santaluz is one of the best lifestyle communities in all of Southern California. Nothing like this will ever be duplicated so close to the coast again. We looked at some houses at The Crosby and I MUCH preferred Santaluz.
I didn’t pre-pay the CFD taxes because of any possibility to sell the house more easily in the future. Quite the contrary. I paid them off because we plan to stay in the house for the foreseeable future until my kids are out of high school. They are only 3 and 4 years old now and we probably will have more kids.
And to be honest, even when they graduate, I don’t plan to sell this house. Either we will stay in it for a few years longer after they graduate or I’ll hold it as an investment property and rent it out. I have NO doubt at all we will have NO problem renting it out either on a long-term lease or via a furnished short term luxury rental property. We spent a small fortune furnishing and renovating it and I’m sure any potential renter (long term or short-term) would love it.
Also, important to consider is BOTH of the CFD’s that we had were already refinanced at lower interest rates. With interest rates so low it’s not likely they will be able to refinance even lower. So felt this was a good time to pay it off.
Under those circumstances, completely pre-paying the Mello Roos taxes was just a smart financial decision and a no brainer, IMHO. As mentioned, one of those wasn’t going to be paid off until at least 2041. The other not at least until 2030. Once you pay it off, it ends your CFD obligations forever. Even if they extend the pay off date. From a pure numbers side considering our situation, it was a wise investment of $61,000 to forever rid ourselves of this obligation.
We posted quite a bit about it on this link if you want to read more about it:
Also, with this Ronald McDonald House CHARITY raffle it’s very important to note that not everyone buys these just because they want to win a house. It’s a great cause and they do wonderful things with the money. Sure, it’s not tax deductible but I’d rather spend a few hundred dollars donating to a good cause vs. putting it on a roulette wheel in Vegas. I think it’s very important to distinguish between the two.
My wife and I donate to several good causes. Many times not even for the tax deduction but because they are good causes and we know great things will be done with the money. The same can’t be said for Vegas.
