Mikenhe

define less creditworthy borrower. I think we discussed this briefly in the past. with neither of us being creditworthy for various reasons... yet both having the highest net worth we've had. although your is smacking mine outta the park...

I have cable. mostly used for sports. I need to watch Liverpool play. bring bring al a carte programming asap I have to confess that I do like dvd'ring programs and skipping the ads.

I spent 10 years in a comcast monopoly area. I could get rid of tv and use dish/directv but was stuck with thier internet service. terrible service, terrible price and a terrible company.

I don't know Mr Buffett or his home circumstances. Even if I did I this it would be inappropriate to comment on them. anyway - I think your finances and assets are a tool and you should use them to suit your circumstances. In my circumstance I have take a profit on investments and used them to purchase another investment - as well as putting an end to an outgoing cash flow which was hampering me from doing as I wished. I chose the route I did because my options were limited. anyone thinking of buying a house needs to rationalise their need to use the cash for a property and see if there are other options that make more sense. That decision isn't just a pure financial one and everyone will have differing variables of differing importance to them. Its also very hard to be rational about this decision as it is influences by a very emotive issue - where to live and how. I don't think that there is a wrong answer. For me I was paying nearly $20,000 a year in rent. How much of my investments do I cash in to prevent that happening. that $20k is after tax dollars. Lets say I put it into a 401K. how much is it worth at that point? Gross it up! its a decent amount. Plus with the house as an asset I can always mortgage it later... if I feel I want to. for me Its also a quality of life issue.. using cash to purchase a house improves my quality of life. I'll be having a beer this sunday while overlooking the lake (and thinking about what work I need to do around the house). Thats not a bad place to be in..

Congratulations, what an awesome story, from poor to a millionaire in 16 years. I think one lesson from your posts is patience, you didn't become a millionaire overnight, it took a while, but you persevered through two tough market downturns and are the better for it. I get emails from newly minted graduates who "want to be rich" and in a lot of ways it saddens me. I believe that anyone with a good job and a high savings rate can become rich, but it takes a long time. It's important to enjoy the journey as much as the destination because it isn't something instant. Most don't become rich overnight, and being so myopically focused on becoming wealthy can lead one to miss the joys of life chasing after the wind. I've enjoyed reading your posts, and it's clear you've enjoyed the journey, which is something so many people miss. seconded - thanks uccmal. its a good point - just using compound interest and saving rguarly will get us all rich - but maybe not as quick as we'd like - or worst still - doing it along a path wher the target of being rich is all consuming. I could have been much better of by now - maybe even retired but - I have a wife aqnd three kids.. they can be damn expensive!!! we try to visit various places around the USA and the world. My youngest is 11 (got the first house just after she was born!). She's been to 14 different countries and way more states. We see travel as a means of education (hopefully while having fun) and have taken many trips. Allof this was using money that I could have invested in order to reach the end goal of being rich. However life is a journey and for all of us to have taken those trips and seen those places is an investment that cannot be measured in dollars. The true worth of them may have a payoff in the long term. Hopefully the payoff will be forever for the kids in terms of memories of trips that can never be replicated regardless of how much money you have. In twenty years there is no chance that my kids can spend a month visiting their Grandparents - so the real cost of those trips has value that can be measured purely in dollars. Each to their own but I truly believe that there has to be a wider goal than accumulation of money.

sure - unless you have no credit (I got shortsaled on my last house). I can't borrow a dime - even though I own more in bank shares than I wanted to borrow and only wanted a small % of my total net assest (most of which I had tied up in IRA's that the banks couldn't touch). Then you have to think outside of the box you want to live in :d

I too doubt that quote at 5 years old - but I like it!! Own vs rent is always down to a lot of differing factors. One of the main ones for us is that the Kids are settled at the current school district. By owning I know they can carry on going there until they leave high school. Thats 7 years for the youngest. Now seven years rent doesn't cover the cost of the house but the margin is low enough for it to make financial sense for us. Definately not a social status - more of having roots for the kids. And after renting and having the house foreclosed on we decided we didn't want to be at the mercy of a landlord or a bank. None of that applies if you don't have kids and want the flexability of moving - or having a stable landlord (maybe I should have done a credit check on him!!). Also having low outgoings so that we have the option of doing what work we want instead of what we need to do is appealing. In seven years time things change - no need for the school district so we aren't tied to the house. Maybe we sell it, or rent it or even stay there. Its nice to have the ball back in my court..

I have no shame :D I bought Lehman Bros shares as well :D

but you still have to live somewhere..

I just wanted to add that the need to raise cash was very therapeutic – going through my portfolio and seeing what holdings I thought still had value, which ones had reached a reasonable value and those I should have sold ages ago. As a person whose strategy often could be described as “The procrastination approach” it was good to review everything in detail rather than just a glance and not doing anything :D

I bought a house in the early part of the last decade. Saw its value rise by a massive – 25%. More than I expected but not the huge boom numbers happening elsewhere. When the market crashed the value of my house dropped 40% from its high – 25% under the amount I bought it for. Then I lost my job at the beginning of 2012. Looked for another but it took me 5 months to find another suitable one. That just about drained my reserves. Put the house on the market as I had to move 1,400 miles away. It then took a year to sell and it went on a short sale which killed my credit. Finally sold in July this year. I rented an apartment at first but moved out due to domestic disputes with the neighbors’, police out regularly and just it not being a suitable place to live. I then rented a single family and that was fine – until about the time that the landlord had foreclosure proceedings started against him. So, finally free of the millstone of the house I had, and being forced to look for another place to live for my family I weighted up all the options and decided to buy. Cash. Prices were low enough that we could do it and we didn’t have to rely on banks (who had no intention of lending to me regardless of the amount I could put down). I cashed in 1/3 of my portfolio and last month I bought a 3 bed single family in a good school district for us to live. The outgoings are now low enough that we technically could live off my wifes salary in retail.. I don’t actually need to earn. But I’ll carry on for the moment as we have debts related to renovating the house – and the fact that I like to drink good wine and eat steak rather than live on the bread line. For the first time in my life I’m not reliant on a pay check in order to support my family – and I reckon that in comparing the running costs of the house compared to rent I’m better off by $10,000 to $15,000 a year. Net money. I can clear the final debts and be far better off than having a mortgage (which is all theoretical) or renting. I can decide what I want to do for a living and not concern myself about supporting my family on that alone. As mentioned above – whats the true cost of the emotional relief it brings. We are no longer at the mercy of anyone regarding money. Most importantly Mama is happy – and when Mama is happy….. It truly is freedom from the rat race and to get there is great. I’d like to add a huge up yours to BOA and Citibank for making my life a living hell for the last 18 months. And a huge thank you to BOA and Citibank for the rise in their share price that made this possible. I write the last check for the renovation today – we move in Saturday. Sunday I shall be sitting on my patio and raising a glass to having no more rent or mortgage payments. I may stay working to provide some of the college fund for the kids… the rest would be spent on travelling… theres a lot of places I want to go yet. “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” ― John Lennon PS - I reserve the right to change my mind and get a mortgage later if it suits me :D

I prefer seattles best too!! sometimes we'd take a 20 minute drive and go to borders so I could drink seattles best and hang out at a bookstore (my kids love bookstores) rather than the 5 minutes to B&N - who serve Starbucks. Prefer Timmies and DD as well to starbucks but its tough to be a patron of those in Florida (saying that I drive past a DD every day!!) I'd rather hang out in a panera for coffee and free wifi than a starbucks. Can't argue with their model though - its very sucessful..

Keep at it, they will come. . ;D I'll second that motion!!!

in my first chunk of money available for investment I let a broker talk me out of putting 30% into FFH (at $130) and use half of it for Lehman Bros instead. lesson one - do your own research. FTR and ATPG both under researched and overconfident. expensive lessons.. one great lesson - do the reading here.. try to work out who knows a particular sector/ company and then do your own research. Its your money - get comfortable with where you are putting it... and my biggest miss - I had MasterCard pegged as my next investment at $200.. and it was around that price for nearly a year - but I procrastinated on getting rid of other shares to fund it. its currently $681....

;D glad you are admitting that it was you. I can now safely deny it

Owning your own home is great – in the right circumstances. For me it’s the family thing – the mental stability of owning your house is good for mamma – and if she’s happy – we can all be happy.. I’m about to buy again. I’ve had a good run recently in the markets and I’ve cashed out some of that and will be investing in real estate – my own. Plus the house will be owned outright. The money I’ve been spending on rent will go into maintaining the property and also pumping up the 401k – so I get some tax benefit out of it.. We’ll own for at least 7 years – the time it takes to get the youngest through school as we like the school district. After that – who knows – we might pack it in and buy an RV and travel for a few years. Impossible to plan beyond the 7 years at this point. Renting does have its advantages but also its disadvantages. We had a nice apartment, but the people above us liked to exercise their dog in the apartment and also indulge in the occasional bout of domestic violence to the point where the police were called on several occasions. Not the environment I wanted for my kids. Moved out of that to a nice house with a pool. More than I wanted to pay but great for the kids. Then 3 months ago we got served (as tenants) with a copy of the summons that Wells Fargo issued to the owner because he hadn’t bothered using any of our rent money (or any money) to pay the mortgage. It was then that we decided we’d like more control over our living environment.

Hi property taxes to make up for what you don't pay elsewhere... Maybe I'm biased - I lived there for years and I'd take florida anytime - I like Manchester though (except for winter). In fact I'll be flying there later today..

thought about Tampa - lot of companies adding jobs, fairly easy drive from smaller outlying communities, no snow....

Is there any correlation between the number of emails that a company sends out and its performance. I’m not much of an online shopper - my wife spends enough for both of us :D The number of emails we get are as follows Sears – daily – sometimes two a day or more Barnes and Noble – on average – more than 1 a day (although I don’ know how many of those are deliberate sign ups for things or categories) Lands end – as well as sears we get a few a week from Lands end as well!! Tiger Direct. One a day. About 9am (this is all my fault – I signed up for it) Target one a week mostly Amazon rarely – yet this is the one I do buy things from. They seems to be the major ones and the sears/lands end/ B&N are now beginning to irritate me. How many times do you think trying to contact me helps? Its to the point that I’d refer not shop there due to the number of times a day you want me to spend time on your email. It’s sears and B&N seem to be in the most trouble retail wise – does this lead to the emails or do the number of emails turn people off? Totally unscientific of course but who else out there gets masses of emails – and are they from stores then aren’t doing well?

This is such a badly run company. Or more to the point it’s a bunch of badly run stores and called a company. The nook is the future for them but the problem is that its run the same way as the rest of the store. In order the meet margins they try to bring in new (ie cheap) employees. Call them part time so they work a max of 19 hours a week and get no benefits. Then ask them to work 30 hours so that it’s a cheap work force. Often they have too many staff so instead of giving hours to those that need or want it they cut most of the staff back to a few hours a week in order to keep them on the books. People are coming into stores with their own food and drink because nobody stops them. People pull out books and magazines to read without paying and don’t put them back – or go as far as taking coupons that they want from magazines and fold papers of books they intent to go back and read later. Parents let their kids run riot and trash books and dump stuff on the floor. Teens hang out there and are loud and obnoxious – putting off paying customers while not buying anything themselves. And the store managers do nothing about it – told be non confrontational and let people get on with it. So instead of selling books and nooks the staff (of which there aren’t enough because you have to think of the bottom line – and management only looks upon staff as an expense) spend their time cleaning the floors and putting back books. The total and utter lack of regard for the staff by management and their focus on the bottom line by cutting expense can only lead to further poor performance. It needs a serious cleanup and senior management needs to get into stores and see whats happening (whereas no regional managers turn up with advance warning so the store can be cleaned up) and start changing their attitude then the downwards spiral will continue. I have never worked for BKS nor do I hold any shares and until they sort the staffing problems out and stop the stores being used as playgrounds fr non customers then I’ll never hold any shares. *sorry for the long winded rant – spent a bit of time at stores recently – and with a few staff and whats happening there is shocking. Management (al of them) need a good kick up the arse.

Two years ago, with a net worth of more than $5m, I couldn't get a loan for $100k. I was trying to purchase a $200k property in Sacramento, a 4-plex with $32,000 gross rental income. The property was fully occupied, the rents were below market. Wells Fargo and Bank of America, plus other local banks. None would bite. They wouldn't loan me under 2% of my net worth! On a property where I was putting 50% cash down in a market that was already crushed in valuation! The loan amount was roughly 3x the gross rent! And then John Stumpf (Wells Fargo CEO) would get on TV and claim they wanted to make loans but there were no creditworthy opportunities. What an unbelievable statement. Their chief excuse was that I didn't have experience as a landlord. I lived a thousand miles away in Seattle and, as I told them, was going to hire a property manager (with experience). Idiocy at its best.. and yet the banks have turned it around and we are buying shares in them? I wonder who is crazy!!! maybe I should be getting rid of my shares in BOA....

The housing market locally is on the move. I live near Tampa and the amount of investment in this area is incredible. anything that will produce an easy 10% a year return is being bought sight unseen. There are very few houses lasting on the market that are valued under 180K. I was talking to a realtor yesterday (I',m renting and the landlord is being foreclosed on) and he was saying that previously banks were happy to have a house on the market for 120 to 180 days to give it time to generate interest. Now they are being snapped up. People trying to get on the market are having a tough time as there are so many cash buyers out there. I'm assuming that this may lead to a soft rental market but I've been looking at that and so far I don't see rents dropping. I have no idea where first time buyers are going to go to get on the housing ladder if they intend to stay in the area long term. add to that the banks are making it really tough to get money. The higher priced houses seem to be churning over nicely. nothing spectacular happening there. Also new builds are happening again - in an area that hasn't seem much new housing in years. Its all 3/4 bed plus single family homes. nothing for starters. I also have friends in the Phoenix and vegas areas and they are reporting that the prices are heating up there as well. I'm not sure I'm ready to buy shares in the building industry yet but it seems to be turning. Another personal view.. how nut are the banks? I moved from NH to FL last year. Due to the downturn in the housing market in NH (even though it never got too hot in the first place) my house was worth a lot less than I paid for it. The banks were so slow to react to the sale - and the purchase that I lost a couple of buyers and ended up short saling the house. This has dinged my credit record but luckily for me I've always put most of my savings into Retirement plans - including one that I control myself. So now BOA have access to most of my financial records and can see what I'm actually worth and (thanks to this board) its not unreasonable. I earn good money for FL. I have a very good net worth. so BOA cancel one of my credit cards.... ummmm. I go and talk to them about obtaining a mortgage - for less than 50% of the property I want to buy. and they turn me down flat because of the short sale. as do all the other banks and a couple of credit unions. how mad is this - our income is on the high side for FL. we want to buy a house and get a loan that secured against a house that I'm putting more than a 50% deposit on and yet.... no dice. Don't they want to make money - they can't fail to get their cash back even in the worst case scenario!! Its driving me nuts. anyway that my eyes on the ground report about florida and the (non) money lending practices of the banks at the moment. and my comment re the forum - I looked back for a housing post and couldn't see one... but I did note that the last month has generated over 150 new threads. and the vast majority are well worth reading. Nice work folks - a bit busier that when I first joined!!!! this is an excellent place to be involved it.. Lets keep it that way!!

And now near Tampa, fl

largest to smallest BAC LVLT C LUK SD AIG FFH MET JNJ FUR a few other small holdings and a 401k with some funds

ha! yeah - I used to work on my own cars - until the day I decided to change the clutch on an MGBGT I owned that had overdrive. the only way to do it was to take the entire engine out. That was my first engine removal and I managed it, and replacing the clutch in a day. Took me 4 days to put the damn thing back together... a lesson learned there... I now have a Volvo twin turbo and I have no idea what 3/4 of the things under the hood do... nor do I wish to!