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[quote=ocrenter]We paid off our MR in Stonebridge about 5 years ago. We were in two CFD districts, one was at $2500 and another close to $3000. The combined pay off was $59k.

Because of the built in annual 2% increase, ROI was about 10 years.

My friend in a different tract of Stonebridge with just slightly larger acreage and sqft but with a home about 3-4 years older reported payoff of $70k just a couple of months ago.

Just like mortgages, the principal doesn’t change much over the first 10 years as you are just paying interest.

2000 sqft homes in Del Sur should have a MR burden of roughly $5000 +/- $500. Very shocked to see the payoff as reported here. That is about 2.5 times the payoff for similar yearly burden.

Why the difference?

Find out the individual interest rate for each CFD.
Find out what was the original bond maturity date, and find out if the maturity date was extended due to additional money raised. (Yes, they can decide to generate more funds by extending maturity date).[/quote]

ocrenter,

Thanks for the mello roos info. I’m in Stonebridge as well with mellos roos of about 6200 for the two CFDs. Seems to me from your data, the payoff amount is increasing (maybe because of the 2 percent increase per year?) so I should pay of the mello roos now instead of later. Love Stonebridge so planning on staying in the home forever so I suppose there isn’t any reason not to pay of the mello roos now. Been using savings to pay down the mortgage but seems like it makes more sense to pay off the mello roos first. No regrets paying off the mello roos, right?

When I bought the house, I was told there was three different rates for Stonebridge based only on the square footage of the home.

Thanks

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[quote=flu][quote=plm]Doesn’t work. They can sneak in a pet. One of the reasons why I hate being a landlord.[/quote]

Then it’s violating lease agreement. Big difference.[/quote]

If they violate the lease, I suppose it would be easier to evict. But then you need go through the hassle of evicting. And then it would be harder to clean/rent again due to the pet being there. Damage has already been done.

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Doesn’t work. They can sneak in a pet. One of the reasons why I hate being a landlord.

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I want to sell my rental too but not because I think the property value will go down, its just a pain to take care of renting it out.

But as you will probably find out from your tax person, you are going to see a big tax hit. I calculated mine to be 23.8 just for federal. 20 for long term cap gains + 3.8 for medicare. Hopefully I’m wrong since I’m not a tax professional. But it really didn’t make much financial sense to sell in my case. Yeah, 1st world problems.

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Actually, it seems like they are lower now than my current 3 percent, 15 year fixed. But I guess it may be not be low enough to have the fees covered so it doesn’t make sense to refinance.

I usually get a call to refinance when it makes sense. Last time was at 2.75 but I was too slow to take advantage before rates went back up.

No more refinancing for me though. I’m thinking of just paying off the mortgage.

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I don’t understand why HLS is getting beat up so much. The article mentioned that some bad lenders can do unscrupulous things such as roll the fees into the mortgage.

Not the case when I refinanced a few times with HLS. And no costs that can be explained by this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WNlWyFgLCg

Everything was explained clearly with options on getting so much money back at a certain rate or paying more to get a better rate.

And afterwards, I did all the painful math and it really was a no cost loan.

Personally I think no cost loans are great in that it allows additional refinancing as rates go down.

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Looking forward to the Visa card since it seems better in every way than the Amex card. Is there any reason to apply for the new Amex other than their offer of $250 for spending $1000?

I could get an easy $250 but I don’t think I would ever have a reason to use the new Amex instead since everyone takes Visa and the Costco Visa will be better.

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First renter mailed checks to me. Second renter deposited directly to my checking account at the bank which makes it much easier for me.

I’m one of the ones who hate being a landlord but that’s my problem, not liking to deal with people. Inadvertent landlord renting out my old place when I’ve bought a new home. Money made from renting doesn’t seem worth it but the appreciation is good/great. Want to get out but I don’t think there is a good exit strategy without being hit hard on taxes. It’s not too bad as long as the rent gets paid. Otherwise it sucks.

Good luck being a landlord. I think the key is finding a good tenant and making sure they never leave.

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Love Costco. Actually like the poor selection. Don’t have to choose and what they have is usually really good. If you don’t like it, you can return it. Recently returned some vitamins I bought over a year ago but never used. No problem at all.

I do think their items have been trending toward organic and higher end but I don’t mind paying more. Like Ballast Point beer. I just get more back in my Amex rebate, just got $260 back this year.

The fresh tilapia and ahi fish are really good besides the rotisserie chicken.

Carmel Mountain gas lines are too long to wait and save only 20 cents/gallon on gas though.

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I would argue that SR is just as inland as 4S if you measure the distance from the ocean and not relative to I15.

According to google maps, SR is closer to SV than 4S.

Purely my opinion but I think SR is cooler than 4S.

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Biotin is recommended by dermatalogists. Costco has a couple of brands. One is all Biotin, the other is nature’s bounty hair skin and nails.

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Shouldn’t you just setup automatic payments each month? Doesn’t make sense to me to make extra payments early. You are paying interest to borrow the money after all.

I believe you can choose whether the payment goes toward principal or not.

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[quote=flu][quote=livinincali]In general a Roth has only 1 advantage over just saving the money outside of a retirement account. That one advantage is that capital gains are tax free. There are a plethora of drawbacks to that one advantage and they include. The money usually can’t be withdrawn without penalty. The investment options tend to be somewhat limited (For example it isn’t easy to invest Roth funds in a rental property). There’s no guarantee that your investment will grow with significant capital gains. There’s no guarantee that the government own’t change rules about tax rates in the future. So in effect they’ve sold you on this dream that you’re going to take $100K, grow it into $500K that’s all going to be tax free but the odds or you doing that and the money staying tax free might not be that great. Unfortunately nobody knows the answers to those questions.[/quote]

That’s not exactly true. Your contribution portion can be drawn without tax consequences because that portion you already paid taxes on. The same idea of how you convert from a traditional IRA to backdoor Roth IRA works on this idea. You can’t qualify for a normal Roth so you co tribute to a traditional IRA and then you immediately roll it over to a Roth with no penalties since you didn’t earn anything in the traditional ira.

There are certain rules that you have to work within[/quote]

I never did a traditional IRA since there was no tax benefit. But I didn’t know I could qualify to convert the traditional IRA into a Roth IRA even though I don’t qualify for the Roth IRA. Really strange loop hole. So I should fund an IRA before the end of year.

Thanks

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I wish you posted this a week earlier. Could have saved a lot of money. Already out $2000 for a plumber and there is still one more running toilet to fix.

I really don’t like being a landlord.

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[quote=joec][quote=plm]So for me I should stick with my traditional 401K. I never got good financial advice when I was starting out. Did 401K but just the minimum to get the company match. And my money just went into a checking account instead of investing in stocks. Oh, well I should have time to catch up but its painful to make up for financial mistakes in the past.

Its probably better to get good financial advice than chasing a larger salary. Kind of like all those star athletes that make millions but wind up broke.[/quote]

There is a lot of (or used to be) debates on the vanguard forums about this…Roth 401k or Regular…

I’m a believer in regular myself. For people making a decent salary, taking the tax hit now and forcing paying taxes at your “marginal” (read highest) rate isn’t the best thing IMO.

Most people with decent careers are in the 28% bracket. Add in 10% or so (or more now with those healthcare ones) for state and 40-50% is gone if you are doing a Roth 401k based on income.

The cases where a Roth 401k does make sense is when you know in retirement, you will be making even more or will always be at the super high tax bracket or have a massive pension or some special executive retirement plan.

However, my reasons for not doing this is you never know what the future holds.

I can play with my tax rate in retirement…if things change, I can withdraw more some years or 0 some other years…if I do really well now, I can take a few years off and do IRA conversions every year or volunteer, start a business, you name it…

As someone who has taken time off and done multiple Roth conversions, I think this option is the best since it can actually become tax free as well (very very low income, massively high deductions from mortgage/prop tax).

If the worst case happens where your regular IRA is MASSIVE and you now have millions in retirement, you can just be glad you have such an insane amount. Another option is if you start a company, you can probably roll your regular IRA into the company plan YOU setup and see what makes more sense for you like some deferred plans execs can setup for themselves…

Bottom line is paying your top marginal rate now is just usually not a good idea.

Gov loves it I think…

… that and who knows, they might tax Roth’s as well.[/quote]

I don’t have enough in my 401K to make me think I will have even more income when I retire so I will stick with traditional 401K. Money outside the 401K I shouldn’t consider since there would not be forced distributions. Since I’m paying significant AMT, my marginal rate should be 28 percent so I’m hoping I’ll be paying less than that when I retire.

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