$20K in closing costs is really high. Quicken initially quoted me $11K in closing costs at 3.5% with the same parameters below, but once I provided the loan estimate, they dropped closing costs down to $5K. I said no thanks. I am in the process of refinancing through my current provider. Current % is 3.99 and new rate will be 3.5% on a 30 year conventional fixed $308.7K left on the loan --> ~$3k in closing = $313K new loan amount Waive house appraisal and assume value increase of $75K Removes $58 a month in PMI Overall monthly savings will be $172 but I am going to pay $100 extra to principal every month. I will not skip the month in between and pay my normal mortgage amount and will break even in 5 months. I am worried that interest rates will continue to drop and may miss out on sub 3.25% rates.
We refinanced with someone called consumer direct for 3.125 a couple years ago. All in costs were $2k. For refinancing I like to look at the payback period. What’s the monthly difference in your interest costs and how many months will it take to cover the initiation/closing fees.
"Consumer Direct" is merely what the big banks & lenders label to their national/regional call centers... 98% of the time you are dealing with a kid, that knows marginally more than you do about mortgages
Worked really well for us. Was a solid 3/8ths lower than most of the major players with low closing costs. I probably wouldn’t go through them for a new home purchase where things really need to be timely and buttoned up but for a refi they did a great job.
Probably a lender by lender thing. They will usually do a revaluation during a refinance so you may be closer to the 20% mark than you realize if you’re in a hot market.
So! My plan is to pay down all my debt besides student loan stuff to the tune of almost $800 a month. After that is completed, that money will go towards a house down payment savings. Our first rental lease that finishes after the switch from debt to saving is only five or six months later, so I'd have 4-5k (and assume my significant other would also save the same amount). So the question is, go into a (down?) market (although this will presumably be in overpriced Austin) with an 8k down payment towards a house OR rent for an additional year, take that 8k and put it into a 1 year bond or CD that can make money for one year in addition to another 12 months of saving (at my rate of saving, I would have like $9600 besides the invested money, assume the same amount from s/o). Additionally, explain to me how the US Treasury bond yield rates for 6 month are 1.9% while the rate for 1 year are 1.85%. I can make more money by it being tied up for less time? Or are those %'s for a yearly return (aka a 6 month bond at 1.9% truly pays out 0.95% since it is half of a year?). That's all the questions I have for today, thank you for your time.
Vio has it at 2.5%. I just parked mine in there after transferring it over from Marcus Goldman Sachs. Marcus kept lowering the rate
You don't have a brick and mortar store to go to, so it will take several days to move money. That's it. You're restricted to the 6 transfers a month like other savings accounts. I'm with Ally and can use some ATMs for free. I just have a local bank for my checking account. They're all FDIC insured like other banks, they just don't have the overhead like a normal one, so they can have higher interest rates.
Nice I’ll have to look into this, i was just concerned on how quick/hard it is to get money out and back into checking if an emergency came up for example.
I’ve transferred money once from my online AmEx HYSA when I was buying my new car and it took 48 hours to clear. Not bad. The link between the two banks was already established though.
It’s a breeze. I have an account at Aly as well. I think it takes 48 hours for the transfer to go through.
Alright investing bros of TMB, I am seeking some advice. Here are some recent posts from the random thoughts thread. That should provide all the deets. Also, I am looking for the simplest thing possible that would involve me sacrificing as little of my money as possible to fees. I am fine with investing after tax dollars, and I don't want to have to be actively involved in the day-to-day management and investing of funds. Basically I just want to put my money in and let it do the work for me with me checking in maybe once a month to see if there is a better thing to invest in within the account. I am also fine with going the risky routes, as long as it's not like if you fuck up you'll lose everything type deal. I have a 401k that I got at my previous employer. So I'm not putting any money into it right now. I like the investment options I have with it. Is there something better I could be doing with it?
Trying to decide whether to ditch Marcus* as well. * The GS bank, not the user. Would never ditch marcus
Assuming you max out your Roth IRA and since it sounds like your employer doesn't offer a retirement plan like a 401k, 403, etc, you're stuck with just investing in stocks/funds through a taxable brokerage account. That is assuming you don't have an HSA available. If that's available, I'd go that route. See here for suggestions for a taxable account (assuming you don't want to just pick specific stocks):
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt since you used to be a state employee. HSA is a savings account for health care if you are on a high deductible plan. It allows you to put money in pretax, invest it, and take it out tax free to pay for medical bills only. So it is a way to pay for medical bills tax free. It can be saved up like a retirement plan.
Only time I've ever been a state employee is my current few hours a week freelance job. But I've never heard of an HSA before, never been offered anywhere I work.
If you want simple, max Roth & Traditional IRAs then put the rest into an index fund in a brokerage account.
Can't you only do $6000 combined between the two IRAs though? So if he's already maxed his Roth, he can't do a traditional.
Check out some of the roboadvisors. You pay, imo, a fair price for quality asset allocation and investment selection. Vanguard, TD, Schwab, Betterment, Wealthfront, Fido, etc all have offerings. For someone that doesn't want to be actively involved with management, this is the way to go. Personally I use Betterment for the bulk of my investing. I do have a TD brokerage account for occasional individual stock investments. https://www.roboadvisorpros.com/robo-advisor-fees-lowest-to-highest/
I have my Roth IRA through Schwab. Looking for doing the index fund through a brokerage account thing now because that sounds like my only other option, I guess. Schwab says as little as $5K to start. While I do have that much I could put in, I don't want to put in that much. Looks like BEtterment is for IRAs (am I reading wrong on their retirement page?), so I can't do that given I already max out my current IRA.
All of those programs manage the money for you. Meaning you pay a fee of ~30 basis points and the advisor will allocate your dollars amongst the best selection of index funds that coincide with the level of risk that you are willing to take. Taking a closer look at Schwab, they don't even charge a management fee (https://intelligent.schwab.com/). Read through that webpage and let me know if you have any questions. Betterment works with IRAs as well as taxable accounts. Schwab's option seems like a great solution to what you're looking for.
Yeah but I just said I don't want to drop $5K for a Schwab robo account. I don't feel comfortable putting in $6K into my IRA and another $5K into that.
You should look into double or triple levered ETFs. They’re awesome. Low risk and you get 3x the gains as those nonlevered (read: lesser) ETFs. Once you get confident in the price action, you start trading options on the shares you own, or if you’re confident - why wouldn’t you be confident - you can even trade options without owning the underlying shares. Look into box spreads! Perfect arbitrage opportunity. You’re actually lucky that you don’t have a 401(k) option. You can access margin of your own and turn that 3x into 6x returns, all because you’re in a taxable account. Good luck man!
I don’t think you’re understanding this conceptually. Schwab, at not cost to you, would be managing your existing IRA. You would then only fund that account on an annual basis. On the taxable side, how much do you actually want to invest?