All Forum Posts by: Jon C

Thanks for the responses.

Plan A was for my wife and I to liquidate some poorly performing securities and buy a second house for a real estate investment. Our daughter and her husband would live there as tenants and pay rent while my wife and I would serve the roll of land lord. They both have jobs and are very eager to get out of the apartment renting cycle.

Plan B is to help them buy the house on their own by gifting them the money that we would have used for ourselves.

Plan A seemed like a good idea, up to the point where I called the CU. “You need a 20% down payment for a second home”, and just like that, no more plan A. It’s just as well I guess.

You have a great point Brian. When I think about it in those terms, I can see it going south a number of ways. Any non-zero chance of destroying our family is not acceptable.

It wasn’t my original intent to give them this money yet. It’s too early and I don’t think they’re responsible enough, and yet, the market seems ripe right now. I would have liked to have seen them start making moves toward this goal on their own, but they seem overwhelmed with the process and are unable to save.

In any case, I do consider this money to be theirs/hers. We paid for her brother’s college which was far more. Even if they’re not ready right now, the process will make them ready.

I will admit, finding a proper house to raise a family is pretty daunting.

My wife and I live in Vancouver WA and are looking for a second home. My wife and I very much want to get our adult daughter and her family into a house but the CU I called told me that we'll need 20% down to qualify for a loan on a second home. That seems pretty steep to me but arguing with the guy wasn't going to help any. For our daughter and her new husband to get a loan, they only need 3%, unless the CU finds out we gave them the money for the down and then it goes up to 20% again.

We don't have an agent, but will probably need one since we're all novices. Resources and pointers are very much appreciated.

Jon

Bill-I'm going down to the local community college this Friday to see about getting my feet wet with some summer math. I'm shooting for next fall for any real work load. I'll take your list with me and see what a counselor has to offer.

Landon-Economics and finance excites me. It's the math that has me worried. Easy to say pre-brain-numbing homework assignments.

High school was a long time ago so we'll see if I'm up to it.
Thanks guys. Thanks.

I'm almost 50 and I just found out that I'm able to got to school again, paid for.
What skills do you use the most, or miss the most? The time clock isn't my boss, so hit me.

The logistics of such a feat much be phenomenal. Staging areas, shift management, assembly sequence, ect.

You know, if you have all that planned out, it'd be like a speed run once you do pull the trigger. Call it "Blue Flame".

WB let the rating companies off the hook for their real estate security bundle ratings fiasco. He said the numbers were there for all to see and that anybody that was buying in should have known, regardless of what their rating was. (it was free speech after all)
I think his proximity to the whole process made him biased an unreliable on that topic. I have to wonder if he invested in the credit default swaps?

Then there was the Investors Magazine referral I bought into. I watched the stock a while and was confident that it had a pretty good baseline. A few days after I bought in, their credit rating went from AAA to AA and the stock took a big dive. Lol, ouch. I no longer aspire to be a speculator.

I agree that the stock market is tilted toward the already affluent. I bought a speculation biotech penny stock a while back that had what I thought was a good product. What I didn't count on was the CEO milking investors and not caring about FDA approval. All the information I got from fellow investors was roughly equal, buy/sell depending on their positions. I had only invested a few K so the losses didn't break me, but it did make me very skeptical of what would have otherwise been seemed a good investment.

Within the framework of those investment vehicles mentioned, I have choices of funds. The Utah 529 has many options, most of which offer no sense of relevance more or less than any of the others listed. It's a bit of a crap shoot. I understand bonds become important as I become more risk averse,but for now, yea.

IF I had the where with all, I'd probably offer up the time to research value investing as it seemed to work well for Warren B. Without his level of critical analysis though, it might be just as risky for me as the penny stock incident.

Thanks BTW for all the input. I do realize this is a real estate forum, but where better to find smart people with money.

I am a 44 year old man with a family and the best of intentions. My 401k is about 14 years old and our 529 started on my daughters 1st B-day. She's going to be 4 soon. My problem is there are SO many choices for these investments and I'm only partially able to understand most of them. Where should I go for advice?

Our full service stock broker recently recommended that we sell all our securities and buy mutual funds, of course incurring almost a 1K in fees and commissions. I no longer trust him.

All the self help books are either overly simplistic or reek of conflict of interest. I don't trust them either.

Our financial adviser only recommends their own products for us to buy, ie., variable rate annuities. Yikes.

There's a few more that I just don't care to go into. My point is, I need advise for my Utah 529 and my 401K investments. As of now, both rely heavily on the SP 500 index. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.
rBGH