171–180 of 222 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
500 dollars/month for municipal taxes? Can you elaborate on those? I might be missing these deduction in the past.
Property taxes. Can count on it being at least 1.5% to 2.5% in high cost of living areas. On an $800k house, that's in the $15k to $20k region per year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, but who would take out a $750k loan on a $8.5M house? I concede I lack the data to prove my point, but common sense would tell you that these loans are almost all within the middle class home bracket.
Someone who has $8.5M of assets and wants $750k of liquidity. Interest rates are so low that it makes sense to take out a mortgage to invest the cash elsewhere.
Who NEEDS to take out a $750k loan in order to be able to buy a $8.5M house?
This article is incredibly misguided for several reasons... 1.) If you truly are "rich," then you pay for your home in cash. You do not take out a mortgage on your house. Look at a distribution of loan amounts, the vast majority are around $600k. Very few are are >$1M [0]. Home loans are a product for middle-class Americans. 2.) A lot of rich people don't really pay income taxes like middle class people do. This is s…
> 1.) If you truly are "rich," then you pay for your home in cash. You might buy a house in cash if you're rich to get a better purchase price and have a quicker closing process. However, you would likely mortgage the house AFTER purchase and then invest that cash in a high dividend stock or some other security. Only a rich fool would keep a house mortgage when interest rates are as low as 2.5% in some cases. (source…
This article is incredibly misguided for several reasons... 1.) If you truly are "rich," then you pay for your home in cash. You do not take out a mortgage on your house. Look at a distribution of loan amounts, the vast majority are around $600k. Very few are are >$1M [0]. Home loans are a product for middle-class Americans. 2.) A lot of rich people don't really pay income taxes like middle class people do. This is s…
> 1.) If you truly are "rich," then you pay for your home in cash. You might buy a house in cash if you're rich to get a better purchase price and have a quicker closing process. However, you would likely mortgage the house AFTER purchase and then invest that cash in a high dividend stock or some other security. Only a rich fool would keep a house mortgage when interest rates are as low as 2.5% in some cases. (source…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if you have debt, you should be taking full advantage of your employer 401k match if one is available to you. In almost every case you will come out ahead even if you withdraw the money early. So many of my coworkers do not contribute to their 401K at all, which is literally just leaving free money on the table.
Are there employers that still match? I'm only half joking.
Yesterday there was the thing about county wealth disparities. Something like that but more general.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1.) If you truly are "rich," then you pay for your home in cash. You might buy a house in cash if you're rich to get a better purchase price and have a quicker closing process. However, you would likely mortgage the house AFTER purchase and then invest that cash in a high dividend stock or some other security. Only a rich fool would keep a house mortgage when interest rates are as low as 2.5% in some cases. (source…
Yes, but in that case low interest rates are driving the decision to loan, not interest rate deduction as the NYTimes article posits.
The low interest rates are also an incentive - but so is the tax deduction.
So this article advocates for the removal of the mortgage interest tax deduction, because subsidizing home ownership leads to a larger economic divide between owners and renters. As a renter, I appreciate the intent, and I also appreciate any measure to simplify the tax code. That said, I also see compelling arguments in the deduction's favor. The sad truth is that most Americans are terrible at saving and in very po…
I'd be interested in seeing a careful study of the degree to which the mortgage interest deduction actually plays a significant role in home ownership rates. But at least based on this article, it sounds like it's noticeably less significant than I'd thought.
This article is incredibly misguided for several reasons... 1.) If you truly are "rich," then you pay for your home in cash. You do not take out a mortgage on your house. Look at a distribution of loan amounts, the vast majority are around $600k. Very few are are >$1M [0]. Home loans are a product for middle-class Americans. 2.) A lot of rich people don't really pay income taxes like middle class people do. This is s…
As a counterpoint, Mark Zuckerberg paid for his home with an adjustable rate mortgage, as reported in 2012:
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Mark-Zuckerberg-s-mor...
The mathematics of the MID are dumb; the optics are what sell it. If it lets someone making, say, $100K a year able to spend 30% more on a house payment, it also enables everyone else making 100K/year to pay that much more. So the same people compete for the same houses. Its main effect is to push up the commissions the agents pay and increase the amount of interest banks earn. It doesn't actually help the person buy…
A reply to my comment is marked dead and I can't revive it, but I can still reply to it: > So, in effect, large, publicly traded corporations would then own the land, as you describe it? You think that's a good idea? I don't mean it "in effect" I mean it explicitly. The advantages are large and the risks addressable: - It spreads ownership around: the shareholders all own the housing stock the corporation owns. Thus…