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I didn’t think late 2017 was a great time to buy a condo, after all the crazy appreciation of 2011-2015 was past, and there was no longer immediate large cashflows from rent > mortgage/tax/hoa/insurance.

As it turned out, my ~$70,000 downpayment and ~$20,000 in renovations has morphed into $350,000 in equity.

Main reason I pulled the trigger was the listing was a little below market at a place I had walked by and admired many times. I easily could have missed out on a continuing windfall!

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We call these people goldbugs. They’ve been saying 5000, 10,000, 50,000 gold for decades. They missed out on a generational bull market, gaining 50% from the bottom while stocks and real estate greatly outperformed that.

My view is there chance that GLD etc don’t have the real gold they claim is low, but not zero. After Enron, Worldcom, AIG, Wirecard, and many other financial scams, why trust Wall Street more than you have to?

You have to weigh this against the risk of physical ownership: lost, stolen, forgotten, etc.

There’s also management fees, though they are not as bad as they used to be. Still, when the market interest rate is under 1%, a 0.4% management fee is pretty bad. CEF I believe is even higher, which is why it has a consistent discount.

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Problems with gold stocks:

Labor troubles, nationalization risk, they are really bad for the environment and risk divestment and drastically increased costs because of stronger regs.

Canadian miners are often stock scams more than actual companies.

Alternatively, you can own one of these:

https://www.jmbullion.com/2020-1-oz-british-gold-queens-beast-white-horse-coin/

https://www.jmbullion.com/20-saint-gauden-gold-double-eagle-almost-uncirculated/

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“the equity sits there, not growing.”

The yield on your residence’s home equity is your use and enjoyment of your house. In government statistics this is called owner equivalent rent. It is, in fact, growing if the rental value of your house, which you avoid by owning the house, is growing.

When you paid down the mortgage, your interest cost went down but your use/enjoyment did not.

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BBN and GBAB are taxed as ordinary income and pay 5 and 5.5%. They are nearly the same so I’d go with GBAB.

The others are taxed at the lower dividend rate, not as ordinary income, and all well over 2.5%. They could all go down long-term, but I don’t think that’s terribly likely. The main risk of them going down is probably President Biden does a big corporate tax increase. But I think that risk is mostly already reflected in their prices.

If you want complete risk free gains, it isn’t going to work. But if you have 2m+ net worth and are playing with 100-150k, I think you want positive expected return, not risk free return.

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Scaredy, I’m skeptical of this higher rate for $175k thing being common. I think try other lenders.

As for rate arbitrage, go for it. Stay conservative when you do. I’d say vanguard utilities etf, BBN, GBAB, VZ, and T.

Not a good play for the average investor, but you can handle it.

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Lamattery got some issues wrong. The coastal height limits will not change, and I saw nothing about setback and parking rules changing. He also linked to an older proposal with an FAR of 8 not 4.

Not that the difference between 4 and 8 is relevant if there’s a height limit.

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SDR: I didn’t see even a cost difference for going 20 instead of 30.

Scaredy: avoid the big interest rate penalty for cash-out by doing a normal no cash-out refi, and then getting a HELOC if you actually need money.

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OC, I saw 2.75 zero cost/negative points on a few sites.

Rates for 20 and 25 seemed to be exactly the same as 30, and 15 barely any savings.

I’ve been looking on and off for a couple years, and I can’t think of ever seeing a savings for a 20 or a large savings for a 15.

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Sharing a large lot with multiple houses with family sounds nice. Not so much a single house, even a big one.

Seems like most houses in 4S ranch are 3500sf on 5800sf lots with no grassy yard. Wouldn’t 2 houses on a 8000sf lot work better?

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[quote=scaredyclassic][quote=gzz]Money helps me avoid the things that get me away from my normal happy state.[/quote]

for instance?

kobe avoided some freeway traffic with his money…what are you avoiding?[/quote]

In that vein, I uber if I am worried there will be parking issues. Airport parking is a bit cheaper than two uber rides, but ads a small layer of unpleasantness. When I visit Grama’s house every year, the last few years I have also been Ubering rather than renting a car. A little more expensive, but no more waiting in car rental lines and screwing around looking for a good quote.

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Money helps me avoid the things that get me away from my normal happy state.

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Your cash flow will be better, but LG is downscale but too remote to be gentrified. El Cajon has a better location on the 8 if you want to go downscale rental. (El Cajon also has wealthy areas.)

Someone I know who lived in LG did not like it, and said they we’re moving to next door Spring Valley as soon as they saved up enough for a down payment. While SV and LG kind of blur together for most San Diego residents, they said SV was far nicer.

Despite these issues, if you see what looks like a great opportunity and have a chance to vet it, I’d say go for it.

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OCT: how smooth was owning.com’s process?

Does “no closing cost” mean no cost at all, or did you have to pay for an appraisal, title etc.

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Gophers are really bad at my place, especially destructive of fruit trees and lawn grass. To protect the trees, I dig a huge hole before planting them and line it with two layers of chicken wire. This is time consuming but fully effective.

Birds also try to steal my peaches, though not other fruit. I put up a reflective tape and scarecrow this year. This has mostly worked, but one day I did see several fruits with beak marks on them.

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