[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]Whenever discussions of the value of an Ivy league education are debated, it always comes down to “if you want to work on Wall Street”. While there may be some merit in that fact, the reality is, not everybody wants to work on Wall st. Personally I think NYC is a shit hole and wouldn’t want to work there no matter what the pay. I’m sure many others feel the same way.[/quote]

Sure, but there are also people who think $400k is chump change. I guess my point wasn’t to say that Ivy League school is a bad decision for everyone. I think it’s a great option if money wasn’t a concern for your family and you could view $400k as a drop in the bucket or if you got some sort of scholarship. If this level of money wasn’t an issue for me and I could spend this on a blink of an eye, I wouldn’t even bother to hesitate if my kid could get in.

But reality is, (at least for me) $400k is a lot of money. It’s not a drop in the bucket, and unfortunately for my kid, for my kid to even consider these schools, I would want to know what the the ROI is. For business? Fine. For medicine, ok maybe. To become a professor in some specialized PHD program, ok maybe. Other things, not so sure.

Anyway, it really is a moot point because the assume is my kid even gets in. This might not even be a problem to have 🙂

[Coronita]

[quote=AN][quote=flu]I think if a kid can get in for something like business or law or medicine, then there might be some useful aspects to it. UPenn has a great undergrad business program and placement to Wharton MBA is pretty high, not to mention connections to wall street. Ditto for Harvard biz and law.[/quote]But business, law, and medicine are graduate and not undergrad. No one are where you got your premed, prelaw, etc. from. They just care where you get your MBA, law, MD from. So, if money matters, it would be smarter to go to states school (maybe even easy ones), get straight A and finish in 2-3 years, then apply to grad school.[/quote]

Actually, for undergrad business on wall street, coming from UPenn does carry a lot of weight.
Because it’s one of the few undergrad programs that actually does have a reputable business undergrad program. Not saying it’s something for everyone, or everyone needs to go that path, but companies like McKinsey, Bain, Goldman, recruit at those select undergrad schools, if that is your thing. Berkeley happens to be one too. But not everyone needs wants/needs to go that career path.

Reality is that only a small percentage of the folks end up going into these sort of professions/opportunities for which the end career path might actually justify such a big school expense expense. I’d say about 90% of the rest of the folks, it wouldn’t make much difference.

[Coronita]

The biggest problem with what I have you are proposing (using your equity to pay off other debt) is that it doesn’t seem like you asked yourself (a) how you got into the other debt to begin with and (b) what are you going to do differently so that you don’t repeat that again if you do decide to sell your home and use the money to pay off your debt.

Imho,

1) I would take option#1 and live as frugally as you can.
2) Option#2 would be something I think you should NEVER do. I would NOT turn your home into a piggie bank and take out a HELOC to pay off other debt that doesn’t generate incoem. All you’ve done is just shift your debt elsewhere to something that a creditor can go after: your primary home.
3)Option#3: you’ll still need a place to live, and you probably should figure out how much rent cost will be, versus how much your monthly mortgage+property tax+insurance/etc is less tax deduction.

Do not get excited about the equity in your primary home. Otherwise you run the risk of being exactly like the other americans during the earlier real estate meltdown when they decided to atm their home to death…That is, unless you don’t mind selling your home to people like me looking to buy a distressed property going through short sales.

Pretend the equity doesn’t exist, and make your financial plan accordingly.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN][quote=flu]The cost of my ivy league degree was ridiculous but not insanely ridiculous. And to be frank, for engineering… didn’t matter one freaking deal versus any other reputable engineering school, except maybe that I was able to finish in 4 years, versus at the time possibly taking me 6 years at a UC school when they were having budget shortfalls and difficulty for students to get the classes they needed.

For something else, perhaps with a pedigree wall street/ management consulting firm, it might make a bigger difference, simply because those companies don’t recruit from all schools. But then again, sibling went to the best UC school and did just fine with that too. For medical/dental/law, not sure…Some say it matters, some say it doesn’t.[/quote]I would have easily finished in 3 years if I wanted to. But I decided to work ~30 hrs/week and graduate in 4 instead. Which really help me with finding my first job. I was competing against kids who had no or little experience.[/quote]

You graduated at a time when the UC system wasn’t suffering from really constraint budgets… When I was going to school, folks that I knew that went to Berkeley and UCLA engineering couldn’t get the classes they wanted, and when they did, they often complained about class sizes. Funny part is that, I didn’t go to class that often when I was in school.

oh well. $400k for undergrad is just absurd.

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]What’s so great about Harvard? I wouldn’t want my kid going to school with all those spoiled, wealthy, elitist little pricks. (oh wait, that statement could apply to most colleges)

I’m curious what college did you graduate from FlyerInHi?[/quote]

I think if a kid can get in for something like business or law or medicine, then there might be some useful aspects to it. UPenn has a great undergrad business program and placement to Wharton MBA is pretty high, not to mention connections to wall street. Ditto for Harvard biz and law.

There are a bunch more specialities, but to me it seems like it *might* only make financial sense if you pick one of the professions that eventually could lead to bigger $$$$. For example, if going to Harvard/UPenn increases your chances of going to wall street or work for a hedge fund, then it might make sense, or a top rank high paid legal profession. And if someone wants to stay in academia and become a professor, well then I can understand that too.

I guess where I don’t see it making sense is all the unemployable majors that one can pick. Granted a lot of these kids with these majors end up going to med school or dental school or law school, it seems to be pretty risky if your kid ends up picking a major like “Communications”, has no interest/desire to b-school, law-school, med school, etc…Then what you end up with a shelling out $380k for a degree that lands no better job prospects other than something only requiring your kid to say “you want fries with that?”….Well, at least that’s for the majority of kids. I guess if the kid is a 1%er kid with a trust fund, it doesn’t really matter what they do/study.

That said, even if you’re the smartest kid and goes to the Ivy’s doesn’t mean you’ll be able to make big $$$$. And as a corollary, I’ve seen plenty of pretty stupid people make big $$$$ on pretty stupid ideas. And by “stupid ideas” I don’t mean it in a negative way…Just emphasizing that the ideas were exactly rocket science.

[Coronita]

The cost of my ivy league degree was ridiculous but not insanely ridiculous. And to be frank, for engineering… didn’t matter one freaking deal versus any other reputable engineering school, except maybe that I was able to finish in 4 years, versus at the time possibly taking me 6 years at a UC school when they were having budget shortfalls and difficulty for students to get the classes they needed.

For something else, perhaps with a pedigree wall street/ management consulting firm, it might make a bigger difference, simply because those companies don’t recruit from all schools. But then again, sibling went to the best UC school and did just fine with that too. For medical/dental/law, not sure…Some say it matters, some say it doesn’t.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN]My kids will be going to a public school. No way is a BS education worth $250k+. @ $380k+, I rather they go to CSU/UC for $100k and save the other $280k to down for a house or start a biz. After your first job, no one really ask where you went to school anyways. I rather pick a person who went to SDSU and have a few apps written for various platforms or written/maintain their own website than an Ivy Leaguer who have done nothing but school.[/quote]

The problem is whether they can get into a UC school.

[Coronita]

[quote=FlyerInHi]You can sell an investment condo and pay for college.[/quote]

I think I would need to sell more than one.

[Coronita]

[quote=scaredyclassic]I kind of want to go to cambodia. And japan. And that’s it.[/quote]

I wouldn’t go to japan these days unless you absolutely have to.

[Coronita]

Euro as almost at parity with the USD. Might not be such a bad idea to do a european delivery these days.Lol

[Coronita]

[quote=moneymaker]What would happen if China nationalized all the manufacturing over there? Kinda like Mexico did to the oil fields in the 70’s. Being communistic I wouldn’t rule it out.Or maybe they already own them, I’m not sure but seems to me they could stop exporting to the US and still survive by exporting to the rest of the world,might be a good thing for us actually because then we could start making stuff here.[/quote]

Nationalizing manufacturing isn’t going to happen because China isn’t stupid.

That said, what they could do is they could use their governmen bodies to drive out foreign companies and foreign competition in their own home markets or at least make their domestic companies have an upper hand…Sort of what they did with anti-trust lawsuits against Qualcomm, Microsoft, and other tech companies there.

[Coronita]

So…. Being the sour grapes, suspicious person as I am….I was curious as to what’s behind these amazing flips…and decided to ask someone knowledgeable about them.

For example, on one of these properties listed as 1.6million…. 4393 Coronado

This house went from being something in 2013 that is $815,000 priced at $1029/sqft to something that is $1.6million priced at $564/sqft.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/4593-Coronado-Ave_San-Diego_CA_92107_M24925-25979

In other words 4393 Coronado was a 792 sqft shack that was turned into a 2900sqft McMansion, most likely through a massive remodeling/teardown.

Credit goes to sdrealtor for helping me understand what is going on some of these properties. It doesn’t appear these are 100% gain “flips”, also supported by some of the the before and after pictures too….

Still nice looking modern homes though with a beautiful view from the upper floor that was added 🙂

[Coronita]

[quote=svelte]I’m being opaque for a reason – there is not another exactly like it in SD county and I would potentially lose my anonymity if I said too much.

It is not a Fiat, though I have nothing against them.

We have not regretted this car for a single second – best automotive decision we’ve ever made.[/quote]

Understood. Respected 🙂

[Coronita]

[quote=The-Shoveler]They still need documentation.

You can’t get to a bubble of the same magnitude as 2006-8 unless you have.
No Doc’s. with No Down loans.

Hey but it’s a start.[/quote]

I’m all giddy with excitement….Please bring in the lunatics again!!!!

[Coronita]

[quote=spdrun]flu: There are condos in the $200s and $300s, and why would you necessarily pay all cash?

e.g. http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/4494-Mentone-St-Unit-7_San-Diego_CA_92107_M26421-48738?row=4

Dave: what about SESD as close to the Gaslamp as you can approach?[/quote]

Condo’s won’t double from this point on imho. And I’m maxxed out on loans I think, nor do I want to spread myself too thin… Like I said, I’m not as rich as you 🙂

[Author]

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