Mortgage banking- when I think about the current interest rate environment and regulations I cant help but think this industry is dead for aspiring six figure wage earners.

I personally believe that Pueblo West has long-term potential of housing prices to outpace local wages. 

People want close-in, relatively "affordable" housing as city's become more in favor simply because we are moving away from a city based manufacturing country(dirty and low wage) and into a services country("green" and high wage). 

Starting in Highlands neighborhood (or northside) which used to be a very rough part of town, is now the one of the top 3 most desirable are in the metro and this has slowly trickled down into neighborhoods south.I am an engineer so I love to base my decisions on data, so for example looking at census data, I like to look at % of high income earners in an area to gauge if I should invest or notFor 80204 which includes the neighborhood of Villa Park, in 2010 the % considered upper middle/high income was 4.2% of households. 2022 census says that now it is 40.5%On the other end is 80219 which includes the neighborhood Westwood which would have the lowest income area on my list, in 2010 Westwood had 4% as well, by 2022 it had 21.1% high /upper middle income earners.I have properties in both and tenant applicants are a wide variety (lower income folks on rental assistance to high income earnings wanting to rent in an area before buying a home) so its hard to put a property class in this area. 

Is it common for agents to compensate assistants on an hourly 1099 wage while they are training?

I am not saying prices will crash, but I don't think wages can keep up.  

Keep track of your hours, maybe, and at the end of the month calculate your "hourly wage" and then try to improve it the following month.Hope this helps in some way!...

Of course, all is well in the world if oil works its way back up, but all indications point to cheap oil for a while.As for Austin, as a general rule of thumb, any time real estate appreciation rates are WAY out of whack with wage appreciation rates, it's cause for concern. 

Maybe Boise Idaho home price would rise after some of us move there.Here's the database:https://layoffdata.com/data/ Population in those states is barely 1 mil if that.. .. so probably % wise pretty close to CA. ya but under the radar we have cold war now between the CA corporation vs the CA (socialist) goverment.while the socialist goverment increase min. wage, the corp started laying off people even in blue collar industry, so this layoffs has been widespread so far.take a look at it here https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/01/08/wxay-j08.html in CA there're 3M minimum-wage worker under poverty line ....also Mexico is having the nicest weather I should say LOL maybe we have to cross border to get good job+weather lol

Withdrawal Scenarios:Scenario 1: Withdraw everything today at age 40, resulting in a 35% loss to penalties and taxes.Based on the little information, I think you are under-estimated how much taxes / penalties will be taken out.Your profile mentions you are a resident of Brooklyn which is located in NYC.NYS / NYC taxes is taxed at around 10%+ for middle income earnersPenalty is 10% at the federal levelFederal taxes for middle income earners is 24%Given the 3 numbers of 24% + 10% + 10%, you are closer to 44% instead of 35%If you are above a middle income earner, the tax rates can behigher.With that said, I took out all my retirement income and put it in real estate.