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Actually HLS, why not the other way. Refi the rental, strip the equity,may off the primary and put all the risk into the rental were if something happens on the income front the only thing with the lien is the rental?

A lot of people like the free and clear primary so they don’t worry about an aggressive foreclosure or the perceived cash drain in retirement.

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Depends, are you looking for a crappy 1/1 condo breathing freeway exhaust or a 3000 sf one story with ocean views and breeze?

Freeway breathers can be had for the $400-$500/sf range.

Freeway free non ocean viewers in the $500-$700/sf range but should be looking TV flipper finished.

And ocean viewers, and up.

Or probably more accurately, SFR freeway breathers are $1M-$1.2m.

not quite freeway breathers are $1.2-$1.5M

not quite all that ocean view, $1.5m-$2.0m

and more preferable, $2M+

The lower end may have a tile bathroom or brass like finish on a tub shower, but otherwise, they all are looking TV finished.

That’s just my take from a quickie look and sort on the last 90 days of sold on Redfin. Maybe an RA that works the area will weigh in.

Overall I’ve quit looking at the appreciation rate and just worry about what the market is at. What sold in 2010 and resells now is not the same house, even when its the same house.

Same is true for the 90s to now. Or even bubble boom. I remember looking at $1.3 million dollar homes where the kid room doors had gerbil chew marks on them. That not what’s selling now.

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The long term rate would either be 15% or 20% depending if the $100K pushes you over the $400K taxable income

California will tax it as income which you are most likely 9.3%.

So effective something like 24.3 or 29.3. Not including any other tax hits /credit reductions the increase AGI may cause.

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So if prices go up to around $500k, you’re thinking your best investment is to sell, take the 7-8% hit on selling fees, take the 29.3% tax hit on the cap gain and then paying of the remaining home loan that is finance at probably 4% or less?

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My concern is while perseverance and effort is important, we’ve completely skewed the weighting of it.

We’ve pushed the mindset to 10,000 hours and have set out measures up to emphasize and reward, Pyrrhic levels of effort.

[quote]But a new Princeton study tears that theory down. In a meta-analysis of 88 studies on deliberate practice, the researchers found that practice accounted for just a 12% difference in performance in various domains.

What’s really surprising is how much it depends on the domain:

• In games, practice made for a 26% difference

• In music, it was a 21% difference

• In sports, an 18% difference

• In education, a 4% difference

• In professions, just a 1% difference[/quote]

I think that’s why we see so much angst around common core in high achieving schools. All that practice is geared towards mastery at performing at the prior school model. It’s the wrong model, IMHO. The education should have our kids able to roll with those changes.

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It’s the concept that what your doing matters. Not the “God is calling me to this” version of that. Although if that’s what works go with it.

In the end, if you can feel what you’re doing matters, you keep going. Without it you stop. Go half heartedly, etc.

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FIH and Flyer sounds like a great book, I’ll add it to my check it out list.

And I inherently agree.

Passion becomes critical. You have to believe in what you’re doing. You have to believe it will make a difference. You have to have the grit, because many have the desire or the desperation to long ten thousand hours doing it, or 20,000 hours. Sometimes only 3000 hours.

Without the passion you can’t keep it going. Like Carli, I kind of cringe when commencement speaker saw follow your bliss, or follow your passion. The pragmatic side agrees with her. My EQ side agrees with them, follow the passion, without it you’ll slog. You might be financially comfortable, but fairly neurotic and semi-burned out at 40. Consigning yourself Dickensian fight to maintain. It’s a mindset trap of scarcity.

Follow the passion, approach life from a mindset of abundance. We’ve talked about it before, to many lack meaning and don’t feel their jobs make a difference.

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[quote=scaredyclassic]Funny you should mention that. I told my kid to study farm management…[/quote]

I’m not really joking about it. That may be the STEM degree of the future.

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[quote=FlyerInHi]A good college degree, in a competitive major, is objective measure that someone has work ethics and had done the hard work. It cannot be taken away.[/quote]

What makes you think anyone has said anything different?

I have a friend that teaches STEM at a well known university. do you know what their big complaint is? The kids don’t even recognize why she has a problem with plagiarism, copying, etc.

Regarding the tech diversity report. Personally, I hope we can stop counting noses soon. I’ve worked in tech my whole career. I’ve hired many. The orgs I’ve been in, the people I’ve hired, closely resemble those charts.

Why? Simple. That’s who applied for the job. 80% male, yep, more like 90%. Again they applied for the job. If I kept a 1/3rd of my spots open for females, I’d have had them open for ten years while I bribe 7th grade girls to go into STEM and work their way through to college graduation.

Those charts are that way because that’s who applies. That’s who took the degrees in the fields needed. That’s who wants to do that work.

Here’s google’s tech chart. “There isn’t much diversity in ethnicity across these tech teams either. At Google, 60% of tech employees are white.”

If we want to count noses, that’s an interesting title given the country is 63% non-hispanic white and STEM graduates look like this:

Those charts are that way because that’s who applies. That’s who took the courses in the fields needed. That’s who wants to do that work.

Top college admission is like hiring. My question is are we valuing work ethic or are we valuing grinding?

Will your kid have a better chances if they make it into Berkeley STEM program compared to CS Fresno? Yea, I suspect so, I also suspect you’re kid we be just fine if they get into CS Fresno (which looks like a 3.2 gpa and around 500 on each SAT component).

And who knows, maybe your kid will decide to be a next generation sustainable farmer that knows how to feed the world in a climate changed world.

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[quote=carli]My point was that I don’t think we should mix up a willingness to work hard with the extreme and misguided drive to participate in and win the race for admissions to a top tier school. It’s especially misguided because while it comes with many risks it does not provide the future career advantage that people have been led to believe it does. And certainly the ROI doesn’t add up in most cases, unless you receive a full ride or significant scholarship and then, sure why not, go to the Ivy league school.[/quote]

Well said.

As for tutors, academics and doping, I guess Corona del Mar didn’t dope.

Lance still had dedication, training and effort and just got an outside boost. It’s still dedication, training and effort. It might be fuzzy but at some point outside help becomes doping.

And not to pick on countries however don’t want to see us go here.

Riot after teachers try to stop pupils cheating

Or here

Test cheating stirs outage, then people start dying

Which is seems like we are.

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I’m perfectly fine with foreign students taking spots, especially if they’re paying true cost.

For a CA resident, UCLA tuition & fees is only $13K. Books add another $1500. The rest of expense is just living in LA.

Out of Staters pay another $26K.

To me, its much like the buy your citizenship immigration. AKA EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. Just another pay to play program.

But if we want to reap, then reap, lets really go get the best and brightest of the world and keep them here when they graduate.

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[quote=FlyerInHi]BG, I’m not talking resale value of the toys. I’m talking prioritizing education over toys. All the toys over 2 decades can pay for a top education.

Lots of the foreign students you don’t like coming here… The vast majority of those families are not filthy rich; they just want upper middle class jobs for their kids. . Their families prioritize, and education is top priority. Same goes for many American families who value education.

Families who value education want the top schools, private and public. It’s not just the UC campuses, but UT Austin, university of Michigan, etc… It’s like people who like trucks want the badass trucks, or people who like American Harleys, or sports cars….whatever. We want the best brands and are willing to pay (money, time or effort)[/quote]

If you’re willing to pay then why are we funding it with tax dollars? If they’re willing to pay then let’s treat it like the business it is and reap a profit from the decades of investment the tax payers have made and channel the funding back to provide for the masses.

And I agree, I do have some resentment about the increased competition. But it isn’t about having to compete, it’s about having to compete where Lance Armstrong doping is the norm. Pop Warner coaches getting suspended over bounty programs for knocking players out, parents doing their kids mission project. And the use of tutors and kumon when it gets so prevalent that teachers adjust their curriculum assuming you are have at least one.

So yes, Korea spends more on education. Saudi Arabia spends a fortune wearing burkas and enforcing social norms, surely you’re not saying since they’re spending more that’s a model we should strive towards?

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[quote=FlyerInHi]
Academic competition is like competing for sports. You get grades and degrees, like trophies or sports stats. Bragging rights and glory. Why not, if you can? BTW, sports is also a lot more competitive than in the past.
[/quote]

For 99.99%, they’ll be just as fine with a regular college degree. They’ll get in. Sports highlights my point. The kids are starting to have to commit like they’re going to train for the Olympics to just play highschool sports.

Texas A&M has just as many Fortune 100 CEOs as Harvard. It also has an average GPA 3.5, SAT scores of 1800 and a 71% admission rate.

The branding mantra of fighting to get into Ivy or ‘top tier’ is the big lie, just like the lie of sports.

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The plan you’re promoting is the equivalent of a commuting plan that says I’m going to drive through the valley and west side of LA at rush hour and out compete the car next to me to merge in front of them. It’ll work but it’s the educational equivalent of planning to live way out in the burgs and slog the commute daily. My plan is to helpy kid figure out how not to have to live on the 101.

Kids today do not have the luxury that I did, Study a reasonable amount get good grades, play three sports, etc. today. They’re forced to specialize early and grind many hours to stay competitive. some kids are inclined to it, some are academically gifted, most are simply slogging massive hours

Is the marginal trade off worth it?

As for the AA, that would be couple layers “down” as in Sr. Tech reporting to a manager who reported to me.

It’s the same as the credential problem that is plaguing tech at the moment. There is an increased reliance on creds because incompetent managers can’t figure out if they know it and competent managers need to sort through the Bs and give the recruiter a short cut

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You’ve described a perfect plan to be a wage slave slogger.

Yes, unfortunately the world is full of small minded people that insist they need an elite intern from a psuedo-Ivy. I had a former CEO who had to salve his ego with one from Stanford. She was young and pretty. Smart too. And of course, one of my organizational reports two levels down with just an AA had to keep fixing her reports…

There’s great irony in knowing the same CEO rejected the AA’s plan and then approved the plan when the intern presented it.

That whole learning versus reality thing. I also know Berkeley grad school STEM people too. Smart, creative and work like a beasts.

I also know people from CalTech, MIT, UCLA undergrad and grad programs.

20 years ago very different than today. Still plenty of super bright super creative people and plenty sloggers.

I also know plenty of people from Podunk U work side by side with them.

And at the point someone is CEO, if the company and shareholders are still looking at his college school and grades, they’re just screwed up.

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