benchmark

They are also pretty aggressive on their loan product -- a couple of my friends has recently re-financed with them, bodes well for the upcoming quarter.

Are you renting because you think that RE is in bubble territory?

Thanks for the idea. How do you look for FFH bonds, and evaluate them? The issue that I'm debating is that bonds' income are taxable, hence your total return are not as good as if you were to invest in blue-chip stock that pays a high dividend. But as you said, the risk is also very limited.

Can you elaborate? I believe what he's saying is cash-at refinance at 30 year interest rate, invest the proceeds in short term bonds (losing money on the negative spread for a while) and then buy long term treasuries when the long term interest rate has moved significantly higher than your mortgage interest rate. Ah, that makes sense. I would not invest in bonds -- I have never invested in bonds, and for this to even worth the risk, I'd like to get something higher return than bond rate.

Can you elaborate?

Ultimately it depends IMO on how leveraged you are. If we were to end up in a repeat of 2008/2009 tomorrow, you were to loose your source of income or something else bad happens would you be at risk of blowing up? Agreed on amount of leverage. I don't have use any leverage in my investment, no margin account. It's really the rate was so low that it's tempting to do it. Now what's the safest investment? I think BRK will do fine, even w/o Buffet. If I really want to juice the return, I would have sold all my brk and buy wfc warrants... or any other financial stocks that have been discussed on other threads.

It's a great idea if you are 100% sure you are going to earn a return greater than 3.875%. It's similar to the Will Rogers advice of buy stocks that go up; if they don't go up, don't buy them. If you know you can do it, then do it, if not, don't. For safety, simply buying BRK or FFH should give you better than 4% return, as long as you can tolerate the lumpiness -- that's why I'm thinking about this.

Given the new low mortgage refinance rate (you can take out a 30-yr mortgage @3.875% or less, depending on your loan amount), I'm thinking about taking money out of the house and invest to get higher return. Has anyone thought about this? is it worth the hassel/risk?

Why do you think they are more real than Linkedin?

I thought that there is (was?) a limit on income w.r.t Roth conversion -- i.e., you can't convert if your incoming is over certain limit, you have to roll over to a traditional IRA.

If a home is never an investment, then it's never a good idea to pay off a mortgage if you can leverage with a lower mortgage rate, assuming that you can generate a higher return rate?

Now they are offering 15yr fixed at 3.375%, now this is really tempting...but Buffet said that taking a 30yr at 4% is the best hedge on dollars, so I'm still banking on 30yr going lower...

Benchmark, what state do you live in, and is your mortgage balance less than fannie/freddie maximums? I look at a LOT of banks and thrifts so may have an idea of who is competitive in your market area. 5/1 2.875% 7/1 3.125% 15 year 3.5% 30 year 4.375% A_Hamilton, I live in CA, my loan amount is greater than 629K, which I think is greater than the fannie's max, and falls into super-jumbo category. The quote above is what's current today. Let me know what you can find, thanks.

I'm now being offered 3.5% for 15yr fixed, the monthly payment is a lot higher, but the rate is fantastic.

Doing some rough calculation, if i use the extra savings with 3% rate to pay down mortgage, at the end of the 7 year, the difference in principle is about 100k, which is quite large, which makes it very attractive. On the other hand, what if the rate jumps to 10% in 7 years....

With super Jumbo loan, unless you can fork out the cash to cover loan after 7 years , it's better to not take a chance. If you are planning to hold the house for only 4-5 years then it might work out well with ARM loan otherwise it's better to stick with cheap fixed rate. We can discuss about 3.75% or 4.25% but remember historically rates are in lowest range. If and when rate goes up, 3.75% or 4.25%, both will look pretty cheap. I completely agree, if the difference in rate is only 0.5? but in this case, it's 1.25%, that's what makes this tempting....

If that is 30 year fixed, stick with that. 15 year makes that a trickier decision. To clearify, my loan has a fixed 30yr at 4.25% and a HELOC at 4.25% which is float. The reason that I'm tempted to for 7/1 is that not only the rate is lower, I can combine the two loans into one and reduce the risk of the HELOC starting floating up in 2 years. Another option is to combine the loans for a 30-yr fixed at 4.375%. My loan is in the super-jumbo category, so the rate all seems to be higher.

How do you stay on top of the rate? I've never heard 30 yr fixed with that low rate (I'm in CA, so loan is bigger than 417K). I'm inclined to not do 7/1 if I didn't have the HELOC portion of the loan.

If that is 30 year fixed, stick with that. 15 year makes that a trickier decision. To clearify, my loan has a fixed 30yr at 4.25% and a HELOC at 4.25% which is float. The reason that I'm tempted to for 7/1 is that not only the rate is lower, I can combine the two loans into one and reduce the risk of the HELOC starting floating up in 2 years.

I have a 4.25% fixed rate mortgage, and now they are offering me a 7/1 ARM with 3.0%. On one hand, it's never a good idea to chase lower rate; but on the other hand, the rate is too good. So now I'm tempted to re-finance into a 7/1 ARM, knowing that i might have to pay a balloon payment in 7 years if the rate goes up dramatically. Am I too short-sighted?

Palo alto, ca. +1 on local meet up

Is it still 50 cent dollar? It would take a long time for bac to get back to 20+

Eric, Can you give an example on how do you 'move up'? or is there any pointers on the net that gives examples on how to change/swap options? I'm a newbie on options. thanks.

More interesting is the TRUPS are $20+ when back on that date they were $5-$8. Where do you find more information about these preferred?

It's a tech company at heart, that just happens to do retail. Just like Google is a tech company that happens to do advertising. Amazon is absolutely a tech company, some of the best I would say, especially with Jeff's vision. Think about all the amazon web services that it offers -- they are ahead of everyone else.