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Flu, I recall reading that there may be minimum seasoning requirements for IRA accounts (required by law? as a matter of course by custodians?) that you must meet before withdrawing from an account without penalty. Therefore you may need somewhere between 21 and 35 such accounts (and per Diego, you’d then only be able to borrow 1/21 to 1/35 of your IRA savings).

Also, for those non-self-employed 401k borrowing scenarios, separation from your employer usually requires you to repay the loan (within 60 days?) or it is considered a distribution. I’ve usually joked that loss of one’s job could qualify one for a hardship withdrawal, but that would only waive the penalty.

Other than that hitch, I’ve been sorely tempted to borrow from my 401k. I look at it as investing in a fixed rate instrument with very low risk of default: me. In some market climates, that could be quite a good thing.

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[quote=squat250]he visited Harvey Mudd. That would be the place if money were no object.[/quote]

If he applies and is accepted, I would stronlgy consider it. (Assuming you/he can afford it or get adequate financial aid.) It was enriching and very, very challenging, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

On the flipside, I dread the education bubble, and I really hope it pops before my kids start college in 14 years.

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+1 to what FLU said.

Carpet in the bathroom is a recipe for mold.

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Clearly, you should trade it for something to someone local (but slightly more north) and keep working your way north, brokering trades, until you’ve got something you want and it’s in SD.

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They’re hedging against you bulldozing the house?

Is the house about 1/3 and the land about 2/3 now? Did somebody swap the fields when they were typing in the reassesment?

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Was this one of the apartment complexes that underwent condo conversion during the boom?

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I got a 1099 from Chase for $0.02 in interest income.

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[quote=flu]
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Question: for someone starting out renting property, is it advisable to do an out-of-area rental, even if you have a property manager? Serious question….I mean a lot of this is about experience, right? Is it feasible to learn when something is in another state managed by another person?[/quote]

A friend of mine owns a rental on the other side of the country. He bought it through one of those all-inclusive services that helps you find and purchase the property and then manages it for you. I believe he has still never laid eyes on it to date. After a couple years, he decided he didn’t like them as a property management firm and switched to another management firm.

It was the first rental he owned. However, his mother is in real estate and has experience managing property, so perhaps he shouldn’t be considered a total neophyte buying sight-unseen across the country. Seems to have worked out really well for him.

On the flip side, I’ve also heard personal anecdotes of people buying sight-unseen and being told that the management company “just can’t seem to get it rented”, only to find out belatedly that the management company’s had it rented all along, and they’ve been pocketing the cash. If you do buy a rental far from home, maybe make it somewhere that you or a friend can drive by on occasion if it stays “vacant” for a while.

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[quote=flu]…

1) If they break, I’m on the hook for fixing them. Plus, what if for some reason they get injured on them (god knows how).

…
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FLU, as I understand it, you are typically not required to maintain all amenities that are part of your rental at the start. I.e., if an amenity such as a fan or a gas grill breaks, as a landlord, you can simply elect to remove it. Typically, this does not violate the lease or make the property uninhabitable. Now, in my opinion, I would repair such an item if it had been an amenity when the lease began, but perhaps only the first time (particularly if it was broken by lack of reasonable care on the part of the tenant).

With regard to ceiling fan injury, I managed to slice my fingers up pretty badly when taking a shirt off in a room with a ceiling fan once…

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I’ll have one of what FLU had in 2011…

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I would be very cautious about buying a condo in UTC. It’s a great area, and I love it. Given its proximity to UCSD, it should offer a strong rental market from the flow of students (likely high turnover though).

The reason I would be cautious is that during the housing boom, several large apartment complexes were “converted” to condos and sold. In some cases these were done well, but in many others, little more was done than changing out the carpet and repainting.

Several of the complexes that were being converted and sold were ones that I was familiar with from an earlier housing search when I was looking to rent in UTC. At that time, many of these suffered from poor sound insulation, mold and water intrusion issues, and had numerous building quality complaints on apartment review websites. I did look at some in person (before and after conversion), and I was not impressed.

If you are looking to buy a condo in UTC, do extensive research on the history of the complex.

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Lost Abbey Deliverance

http://www.lostabbey.com/lost-abbey-beers/non-denominational-ales/deliverance/

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/18149/60886

I had the pleasure of enjoying it at Oggi’s in Carmel Mountain when they had it on tap a month or so ago (technically 2012, but…).

My brother in law brought a bottle of Angel’s Share to Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, so when I heard about Deliverance (Angel’s Share and Serpent’s Stout blended) I knew I absolutely had to try it. I was very much not disappointed. A word of caution, though: it is probably not suitable for all palates.

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Scaredy, might not that suffer from false positives akin to White Coat Syndrome?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_coat_hypertension

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Genius, flu. Absolute genius.

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I’ve been pondering the idea. I can’t come up with a good model of how paying it off would translate into eventual resale value.

Given that today it is a hidden cost, I feel that paying it off will be a hidden benefit, difficult to market to future buyers. “Hey, you don’t have to pay this thing that you already weren’t considering as part of the purchase price… That makes this house more valuable by X much, so pay me more.”

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