All Forum Posts by: Eric Gutierrez

Also, I find that any of the bath fans you buy at the big box stores tend to be extremely loud. Besides the TD100x, I really like panasonic fans. You might pay a bit more but I find loud bath fans to be extremely annoying. I would imagine I'm not the only person that dislikes the bath fans that sound like a small jet engine. I tend to think if its quiet they will be more likely to leave them on longer.

You might wanna check how the ductwork for the bathfan was done up in the attic. You see some very interesting methods of venting bath fans if you look on a site like Inspectapedia an excessive amount of ductwork turns/ long runs will really hurt the true CFM of the bath fan. I have installed (3) Soler Palau TD100x inline bath fans and had them on the low speed wired to the light switch. Might waste a bit of electricity but it will make sure that it gets used. I like the inline fans because all you can hear in the bathroom is a very faint air whooshing noise.

My experience dealing with my tenants (granted all college students) is that a lot of people are naive and don't realize the implications of their actions. I would fix the furnace, and then have her confirm in writing that you put a working CO detector in the house and if it or any smoke alarms start going off she is not to move or disable the units. I think you would be opening a can of worms with space heaters.

@ Brian - Yes a major downfall with the plan is that it would have to be repaid if I left the company. I also have being seeing great returns in the stock market. This would be almost more of a high yield bond where I know my return over the time period on that chunk of cash.

@ Glen - My biggest reason for not throwing extra cash at the principal today say your example of 10k today invested is that my interest rate is 4.25% so that money that invest today would earn less than a 4.25% return. If I dumped a chunk of cash on the 60th payment I would be seeing the 4.25% return from paying down principal on top of saving the $150 per mo as I would meet the min time requirement.

I'll have to dig into what the 78% is based on whether its the original purchase price, or the current market value. I'm not overly concerned with a value decrease as its located next to a major state college.

@Matt - Ive considered that approach but for the same reason as above less than a 4.25% return on any money invested prior to that 60 month mark.

I guess more my thinking on this was more so if next month I was hitting month 60 and didnt want to cash out my reserves to get to 78%.

This is more of a hypothetical question. I'm not sure I would strongly consider doing it not just thinking through some options. As I mentioned, I got bored at work and started playing with the numbers. Initially started off with an approach like Matt suggested of what extra it would take from now till then.

I got bored at work today and started taking a look at my options on my FHA loan.

Short background

I have an FHA loan on a duplex that I own. I paid $165k for it in 2011. My FHA MIP is just a hair under $150 per month. Since my loan started before the FHA change in 2013, once I reach 78% equity and have paid the MIP for at least 60 months the insurance goes away. I'm just looking for a logic check, not actually trying to get to the exact $ on this.

Idea

Take a 401k loan @ 4.25% to pay down the principal enough to get me under the 78% threshold on month 60.

Month 60 with no additional payments made prior I would be at $149,800 or 90.7%. 128,700 is the magical 78%. So the 401k loan amount would be for $21,100.

Naturally I would be under 78% in month 127. The max length my 401k loan allows is 48 months, but for this purpose lets assume that I can do a 67 month loan and have the 401k payments end the same time that the MIP would have naturally ended.

So over the 67 month period, I could either pay $150 per month of MIP or $367 per month to my 401k. So I would have to pay an extra $217 per month. Over the 67 month period that would add up to $14,539.

At month 127 under the natural method of paying the MIP and not making any other payments, my remaining balance would be the 128,700. Under the 401k method, I would be right at 101,000 a difference of roughly 28k. So for paying an extra 14.5k over the period I would wind up 28k better off so actually 28k-14.5=13.5k better.

Other considerations

I realize that by using a 401k loan I could potentially miss out on the gains that the 21k would have seen in stock market. Also, paying the extra $217 per month isn't an issue.

Question

I guess what I'm asking is does anyone else follow my logic, or is it flawed somewhere along the way? Any other negative aspects with this idea besides what I mentioned above?

Let me know what you think. This was more for a logic check than anything, I wont be at 5 years until 2016...

You can remove the guts of the current fan/ get a new fan cover for the old box and then install an inline fan like a Soler & Palau TD100 or TD100x up in the attic if its accessible. I believe it would be up to code to use the old fan enclosure as a box to make the connection to the new fan, or add a box up in the attic that you make the connection in.

It would allow you to leave the current box in the ceiling and maybe toss a new grill onto it without having to do any drywall work. I have installed TD100xs in a couple properties and they incredibly silent. You can barely hear the hum.

I would try and push the contractor on price. When I bought windows from a local supply house the upgrade cost was only like $12-15 a window to have low e/ gas filled. It seems like they are further padding their profit margin with the upgrade cost.

I personally paid the slight upgrade because I was only replacing 7 windows. If you were doing a large building then maybe it would add up.

Not trying to distract from the thread, but

Anyone have an recommendations for a window installer in the Minneapolis area that wraps the exterior also?

-Eric

Iwould replace the stove out of pocket. Anyways, who puts anything but cooking pans in that drawer? Weird

If it were me I'd figure out a price that would make me plenty happy to get rid of the property and go ahead and list it. It doesn't hurt to have a line in the water...who knows what sucker might bite

How is using the drain cleaner? It seems like plenty of places mention that you could easily break a wrist or crack your head using it wrong...that being said I'm not afraid of power tools/ equipment. I rented a walk behind bobcat with an auger last weekend to put in a fence. I wish I could justify owning one of those it was pretty fun.