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The great wealth transfer reality check

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Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#81

Post by Danox »

cortesoft wrote: post #25
cyanregiment wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same fears but even the boomers sitting on million dollar homes are being called “cash poor”. You still need an income. You can only refinance so much, and then you’re paying off interest. If your home 10x’s in value so does your property tax. Some people are paying $1500/mo. in property tax. They need a job just to cover it. You can’t sell the house and cash out because you need that cash to buy the next h…

> If your home 10x’s in value so does your property tax. That depends on where you live. For example, in California we have Prop 13, which limits how much the assessed value for a home can increase without being sold. This means that even if your house goes up 10x in value, California will only increase the assessed value for tax purposes by 2% each year.

If you are of retirement age prop 13 saves you if you own your house and are on a fixed income and not a member of the 5%, because if it wasn’t for prop 13, the local municipalities would continue to jack up your property tax to the moon.

Prop 13 was passed through a statewide initiative process, because at the time the statewide politicians were never going do the right thing for retirees that managed to own a house.

Prop 13 is not necessarily a perfect solution, but since that time the politicians inside California or in other states are by and large incapable coming up with any other solutions that would benefit a larger body/group of people who own or are buying homes.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#82

Post by hdgvhicv »

jimbob45 wrote: post #75
CamJN wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then, you’re obligated to take care of them No, you very much are not.

Most of us are thankful our parents took care of us and do love them. I recognize that it’s not everyone but I think most kids don’t want to see their parents suffer.

As a parent I would far rather suffer than see my kids suffer.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#83

Post by Danox »

SoftTalker wrote: post #39
cyanregiment wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same fears but even the boomers sitting on million dollar homes are being called “cash poor”. You still need an income. You can only refinance so much, and then you’re paying off interest. If your home 10x’s in value so does your property tax. Some people are paying $1500/mo. in property tax. They need a job just to cover it. You can’t sell the house and cash out because you need that cash to buy the next h…

> I think boomers thought they would get rich off the real estate and it’s not really happening. It would have if they had paid off their mortgages instead of borrowing against equity, refinancing and taking equity out, etc. If you still owe 70-80% of your house to the bank when you retire, it's not really an asset.

Correct, you have to own the house outright which is the first step towards financial independence. Next step is having some investments if you’re lucky, fortunate at least a million-two million dollars above and beyond owning your house.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#84

Post by Danox »

loeg wrote: post #43
SoftTalker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may look nicer, and have more features, but it's probably not built any better. Older homes were built with copper plumbing, plaster walls, solid hardwood floors, wood trim, and plywood subfloors, roof deck, and sheathing. New homes use PVC or PEX pipes, drywall, OSB (basically glued-up wood chips) instead of plywood, laminate floors, and plastic or styrene trim. The only things really better today are insulation…

The new building methods and materials are genuinely better. (Criticizing OSB and glazing plywood is crazy. They're both just composite wood products. OSB is totally fine for what it's used for.)

Not better just faster to put up, all those expensive cheap track homes and luxury apartments going up they are not made or built better not by a longshot.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#85

Post by shaftway »

citizenpaul wrote: post #24

What is shocking to me is how can so many boomers still have a mortgage? They could buy a house when you could easily get one for >plant to do a Skip gen trip? I have no earthy idea what this could mean but they just casually drop it in there. Thats how you can tell what social class you were born into. I had a school friend whom's grandparents were one of these in the list it seems. The bought him a 3bed/bath house…

My in-laws never had the money to save for retirement, so they got suckered into a reverse mortgage in Florida. They saw it as a way to have some spending money in their old age, but now that they've spent it and they're upside down it's a prison. They want to move to another area, closer to family, but they have no equity, and so no means to get a new place.

I'd imagine that falls into the bucket of a boomer with a mortgage.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#86

Post by hollerith »

Kirby64 wrote: post #80
SoftTalker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may look nicer, and have more features, but it's probably not built any better. Older homes were built with copper plumbing, plaster walls, solid hardwood floors, wood trim, and plywood subfloors, roof deck, and sheathing. New homes use PVC or PEX pipes, drywall, OSB (basically glued-up wood chips) instead of plywood, laminate floors, and plastic or styrene trim. The only things really better today are insulation…

> New homes use PVC or PEX pipes, drywall, OSB (basically glued-up wood chips) instead of plywood, laminate floors, and plastic or styrene trim. PEX is better than copper. Drywall is better than lathe and plaster. Modern OSB like Advantech are just superior to plywood subfloors in every metric. Maybe the hardwood floors were better back then in some ways, but engineered hardwood or vinyl planks are superior in many w…

If drywall is better than lath and plaster, then why is lath and plaster still used today -- in high-end construction?

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#87

Post by Danox »

SoftTalker wrote: post #63
jandrewrogers wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is shocking to me is how can so many boomers still have a mortgage? If you have a low-interest mortgage then it doesn't make financial sense to pay it off any faster than you have to. I know many people that carry a mortgage they could easily pay down but choose not to purely on financial optimization grounds.

Yes as long as you actually invest the money you would otherwise be using to pay down the mortgage into something that has a higher return than the mortgage is costing you. This isn't difficult to do, but a lot of people don't do that, they just spend the money.

You said it most live the life of Riley and that’s fine if you have wealthy parents to cover for you most do not. Another area where people squander their money is dipping into their 401(k) over the years.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#88

Post by Kirby64 »

hollerith wrote: post #86
Kirby64 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> New homes use PVC or PEX pipes, drywall, OSB (basically glued-up wood chips) instead of plywood, laminate floors, and plastic or styrene trim. PEX is better than copper. Drywall is better than lathe and plaster. Modern OSB like Advantech are just superior to plywood subfloors in every metric. Maybe the hardwood floors were better back then in some ways, but engineered hardwood or vinyl planks are superior in many w…

If drywall is better than lath and plaster, then why is lath and plaster still used today -- in high-end construction?

The same reason many inferior materials are used in higher end goods: there’s some mystic that its superior for one reason or another, potentially aesthetically, and the higher cost is sometimes a draw by itself. There’s nothing you can’t achieve with drywall that you can with lath and plaster.

There’s no reason ever to use marble over quartz designed to look like marble… but some people do anyways.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#90

Post by mfro »

irishcoffee wrote: post #62
jakeydus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USDA says that 13.7% of US households experienced food insecurity in 2024 [0]. Extrapolate that against population and you get 47 million people. [0]: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... EDIT since I can't reply to irish-coffee for some reason: nobody said literally starving, OP said experiencing hunger or deprivation.

> Food insecurity is the limited or uncertain access to enough safe, affordable, and nutritious food to live a healthy life. It means people do not know where their next meal will come from or cannot buy enough healthy food because they lack money or other resources Pretty big gap between literal starving and food insecurity.

Pretty big gap in quality of life between people who have no worries about their next meal and those who have to stress over every one.
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