DUMP THREAD V.9: SZN OVER

[Inqui]

Never too late lol. But of course, some major sacrifices have to be made for a complete switch in careers.

I did all the internships and stuff during college so I was always working and honestly missed out on a lot. It set me up well now of course, but there’s still that desire to have a little freedom instead of slaving away for the rest of my life.

I spent my last semester break as a full-time student doing work experience at a small company. It was so depressing when everyone came back and talked about all the great stuff they'd done during the break, but it did mean getting my current job, which meant being able to buy a house and move out of a crappy city. It still feels like I didn't get the most out of my time in college from either a study or an enjoying life standpoint though, so I know how you feel. I think that's a grass is greener thing though.

It's never too late to make a change. There are people well into their 50s studying finance and economics with me and it's clearly a worthwhile step for them or they wouldn't be doing it. My thing is that I'm feeling decidedly unhyped about having to start from the bottom again in a new industry. Best case scenario is that when I move to The Netherlands at the end of the year I'll be able to tack on another one-year Masters at one of the top business schools there, but I'll be 30 when I finish that and coming into a new industry - so even though I've done pretty well already there's still that lingering feeling I've wasted my 20s and my 30s will be like a WR who's been knocked off their route slightly by being jammed at the line.

 

[Simba]

If there are lots of colleges in the area it sounds like you're set. There's always a risk if you take on students as tenants, but from a supply and demand standpoint those areas are great news for prices and jobs and the like.

I'm assuming you have mortgage brokers in the US? They basically charge the banks for finding you so you don't have to pay them a thing. If I were in your position I'd try to make an appointment with one tomorrow (even if you're not planning to buy for another six months or so) and talk about your options and what you'll need, and the decisions you can make over the next few months that'll enhance your position. Sounds like you're in a really good position though and I'd say just go for it no matter what.

Honestly I find that you can make do with almost any level of payments. My place is basically on a five-year mortgage so it means my weekly payments are pretty obscene compared with what they could be, but it's pretty easy to adjust your discretionary spending. With that said, as a general rule mortgage stress is when 25% or more of your paycheck (after taxes) goes to your mortgage (do with that what you will lol).

I think the schools in the area should be good. The closest one is Johns Hopkins University just a bit up the road and that's a significant portion of grad and med students. Even looking beyond that, the company I'm joining is very young and modern and they own like 60% of Mt. Vernon, so I'm sure there are some young professionals like myself who will be interested in time as well.

Yeah we have mortgage brokers around these parts. I have the entire week off next week before starting at the new place, so maybe I'll try to set aside some time. My current bank that gave me the car loan was fantastic though (and a ridiculously low interest rate), so I'll certainly be checking with them.

Obviously I need to do a little more digging, but just adding up rough estimates of my expenses quickly, the mortgage should only take about 20% or so of my monthly income. That's with at least 20% going directly to savings too, so I should be in good shape.

The current company that I'm leaving today actually sold part of the business or I wouldn't have been looking at all, and I'm super glad they did. Found this new opportunity and managed to increase my salary by $10K. I was going to start looking to buy in Howard County (my MD friends know how expensive it is here...) and I figured I'd be struggling to find anything affordable for my salary. Managed to get more money and open up a whole bunch of cheaper options. Life works in mysterious ways.

 

[rossihunter2]

I think looking at it with the traditional multipliers will not be a smart move. I think most people really didn't want to get spoiled with this movie and saw it opening weekend. How it does from now on comes down to mainly rewatches IMO. I still think it has a good chance but also think there is a chance it doesn't.

that's true but it's opened so historically strong that its multiplier value doesnt have to be as big as traditional multipliers but yeah we'll see

 

[SepticeyePoe]

I feel like I should be taking notes for when I want to get a house

 

[Simba]

I feel like I should be taking notes for when I want to get a house

Being an adult sucks lol. Enjoy the school life while you can. It may seem bad at the time, but trust me, it gets a lot more stressful once you're done.

 

[52520Andrew]

Bruh I’m done with it lol. Tomorrow is my last day doing it consistently and I couldn’t be happier. I’m sitting at about an hour and five minutes each way. Sometimes a little better and often a little worse.

It has gotten bad, doesn't help with the construction on 895 that going that way is just a mess

 

[Inqui]

Being an adult sucks lol. Enjoy the school life while you can. It may seem bad at the time, but trust me, it gets a lot more stressful once you're done.

Honestly even though I'm sick of my job I actually don't mind doing the adult thing. Responsibilities and free time are obviously an issue (free time especially for me because I work on Saturdays and Sundays. Lucky me) but it's nice to have money (and all that goes with it) and something kinda steady to do.

 

[Simba]

It has gotten bad, doesn't help with the construction on 895 that going that way is just a mess

Yeah 895 fucked everything back up. We had a brief period where they finished 95 and it was going great. A couple months later they do 895 and things went back to terrible.

 

[Simba]

Honestly even though I'm sick of my job I actually don't mind doing the adult thing. Responsibilities and free time are obviously an issue (free time especially for me because I work on Saturdays and Sundays. Lucky me) but it's nice to have money (and all that goes with it) and something kinda steady to do.

I'd be super cool with it if they could just cut it down to 6-7 hours a day instead of 8-9 lol

 

[Inqui]

I think the schools in the area should be good. The closest one is Johns Hopkins University just a bit up the road and that's a significant portion of grad and med students. Even looking beyond that, the company I'm joining is very young and modern and they own like 60% of Mt. Vernon, so I'm sure there are some young professionals like myself who will be interested in time as well.

Yeah we have mortgage brokers around these parts. I have the entire week off next week before starting at the new place, so maybe I'll try to set aside some time. My current bank that gave me the car loan was fantastic though (and a ridiculously low interest rate), so I'll certainly be checking with them.

Obviously I need to do a little more digging, but just adding up rough estimates of my expenses quickly, the mortgage should only take about 20% or so of my monthly income. That's with at least 20% going directly to savings too, so I should be in good shape.

The current company that I'm leaving today actually sold part of the business or I wouldn't have been looking at all, and I'm super glad they did. Found this new opportunity and managed to increase my salary by $10K. I was going to start looking to buy in Howard County (my MD friends know how expensive it is here...) and I figured I'd be struggling to find anything affordable for my salary. Managed to get more money and open up a whole bunch of cheaper options. Life works in mysterious ways.

Yeah I'd have a chat with a broker for sure, ideally one who's not attached to a particular bank (though it can be useful to sound out one of those too). Although the banks are kinda much of a muchness, a lot of the big ones still have a niche and the ones that want to be the big players in the mortgage market tend to be the easiest to work with for that (in Australia and NZ that's Westpac, while ANZ tends to focus more on corporate finance for example). I'd have to read over the balance sheets to get an idea of which US ones are especially big in the property market but again that's something a good broker should know.

If you can save 20% of your income (find a good low-cost passive fund and yadda yadda) and stash another 20% on a mortgage you'll be in really good shape no matter what you do. Mortgage payments become a sort of savings account in themselves because all the principal you pay off combined with any paper capital gains becomes equity you can use. It's the best savings account in the world because it's harder to access but it's also the worst savings account in the world for the same reason lol.

The first couple of years will be a bit rough because that's when the highest portion of your repayments are interest (though the higher the mortgage payments the faster the interest portion gets whittled down, so maybe that's something to think about), and that seems to be when you incur the most costs.

It's amazing how life works. I was visiting my dad once and he went to the supermarket before we got dinner and I decided to sit at the front and idly browse the weekly property listings while I waited for him and then I saw a house that was especially cheap because it was on the market through a seriously generous government scheme. I followed that up and a few months later I'd bought my first ever house because of that scheme, but I never would have found it had I wandered around through the supermarket aisles with my dad.

 

[Inqui]

I'd be super cool with it if they could just cut it down to 6-7 hours a day instead of 8-9 lol

Now that I could get behind. Interestingly there's actually a growing body of evidence showing that a 30- to 35-hour work week increases productivity quite significantly. Productivity's also one of the biggest missing pieces in the quality-of-life puzzle facing policy makers in the developed world, so that's something they might do well to take into account.

But for me, going forward I'll be happy with anything that gives me some semblance of a work-life balance at all. I'd love to sit behind a desk and do financial analysis all day but I know a lot of those jobs are brutal, so anything where I can actually see my wife and (hopefully) kids will be nice.

 

[JoeyFlex5]

Yeah 895 fucked everything back up. We had a brief period where they finished 95 and it was going great. A couple months later they do 895 and things went back to terrible.

yeah i live in pasadena, and recently in glen burnie, and have to commute north to parkville a lot of days, when they shut 895 down it pretty much fucked my whole day up. i was going the opposite direction of traffic because a shitload of people live north of the tunnel and have to commute south, but not so much in my direction, but when they closed 895 it realy fucked everything up, it turned my commute from a half hour to an hour easily, all because of a 1 mile stretch of traffic where 895 squeezes into one lane, and the REAL problem was entitled dickheads who dont understand a zipper merge, and instead of letting traffic flow, theyd rather tailgate and not let people over.

 

[Simba]

yeah i live in pasadena, and recently in glen burnie, and have to commute north to parkville a lot of days, when they shut 895 down it pretty much fucked my whole day up. i was going the opposite direction of traffic because a shitload of people live north of the tunnel and have to commute south, but not so much in my direction, but when they closed 895 it realy fucked everything up, it turned my commute from a half hour to an hour easily, all because of a 1 mile stretch of traffic where 895 squeezes into one lane, and the REAL problem was entitled dickheads who dont understand a zipper merge, and instead of letting traffic flow, theyd rather tailgate and not let people over.

Seriously. My commute was sitting at a cool 40-45 minutes in the heat of rush hour in that brief period where 95 and 895 were both functional. Once that 895 bullshit started, anything under an hour was a blessing. As of yesterday, I'm done with that terror of a commute though and things are looking up. Now I just have to deal with the pothole-ridden city streets.

 

[Simba]

Yeah I'd have a chat with a broker for sure, ideally one who's not attached to a particular bank (though it can be useful to sound out one of those too). Although the banks are kinda much of a muchness, a lot of the big ones still have a niche and the ones that want to be the big players in the mortgage market tend to be the easiest to work with for that (in Australia and NZ that's Westpac, while ANZ tends to focus more on corporate finance for example). I'd have to read over the balance sheets to get an idea of which US ones are especially big in the property market but again that's something a good broker should know.

If you can save 20% of your income (find a good low-cost passive fund and yadda yadda) and stash another 20% on a mortgage you'll be in really good shape no matter what you do. Mortgage payments become a sort of savings account in themselves because all the principal you pay off combined with any paper capital gains becomes equity you can use. It's the best savings account in the world because it's harder to access but it's also the worst savings account in the world for the same reason lol.

The first couple of years will be a bit rough because that's when the highest portion of your repayments are interest (though the higher the mortgage payments the faster the interest portion gets whittled down, so maybe that's something to think about), and that seems to be when you incur the most costs.

It's amazing how life works. I was visiting my dad once and he went to the supermarket before we got dinner and I decided to sit at the front and idly browse the weekly property listings while I waited for him and then I saw a house that was especially cheap because it was on the market through a seriously generous government scheme. I followed that up and a few months later I'd bought my first ever house because of that scheme, but I never would have found it had I wandered around through the supermarket aisles with my dad.

Yeah I'll start doing some digging this week. Have the entire week off before I start and pretty much 0 plans, so I'm looking for things to occupy my time lol.

I appreciate the advice though. It feels weird that like 4 years ago I was doing some bullshit job at $12/hour and now I'm in a really good position to buy a place of my own on my own. Not sure I can afford anything other than a 30 year term but that's what the experts are for lol

 

[Willbacker]

Yeah I'll start doing some digging this week. Have the entire week off before I start and pretty much 0 plans, so I'm looking for things to occupy my time lol.

I appreciate the advice though. It feels weird that like 4 years ago I was doing some bullshit job at $12/hour and now I'm in a really good position to buy a place of my own on my own. Not sure I can afford anything other than a 30 year term but that's what the experts are for lol

30 yr terms are great. A little higher % than less yr terms but minimal. The critical you want to do tho is hammer your principal. On a 1250.00 mortgage pay 1500.00 if you can and its possible you can pay off the loan in 20 yrs if you do no refinancing. An extra 250 in 1 yr takes off principal of 3 grand x20 would knock off 60 grand right there and save you the interest. One thing the real estate person will tell you is don't look at the total price during signing lol. The real price you paying will blow your fuckin mind.

 

[Simba]

30 yr terms are great. A little higher % than less yr terms but minimal. The critical you want to do tho is hammer your principal. On a 1250.00 mortgage pay 1500.00 if you can and its possible you can pay off the loan in 20 yrs if you do no refinancing. An extra 250 in 1 yr takes off principal of 3 grand x20 would knock off 60 grand right there and save you the interest. One thing the real estate person will tell you is don't look at the total price during signing lol. The real price you paying will blow your fuckin mind.

Oh I feel you lol. I don’t want any parts of seeing the actual cost. As long as I can afford it monthly, I’m good.

 

[Oldfaithful]

Roommates have moved out. Have the place to myself for two weeks.

 

[SepticeyePoe]

So... I've been a member for 2 years now. If I'm remembering correctly, May 4th was the 1st day we could join back in 2017. Which means the site is 2 years old now.

And May 6th was the day the old forum died... RIP

 

[Inqui]

Yeah I'll start doing some digging this week. Have the entire week off before I start and pretty much 0 plans, so I'm looking for things to occupy my time lol.

I appreciate the advice though. It feels weird that like 4 years ago I was doing some bullshit job at $12/hour and now I'm in a really good position to buy a place of my own on my own. Not sure I can afford anything other than a 30 year term but that's what the experts are for lol

It's crazy how life works sometimes. In four years' time you'll be thinking the same thing once you get yourself set up.

People instinctively don't like debt but when you take out a loan the loan values stay flat while other numbers tend to inflate (you get a raise, prices go up etc). So just stick to a payment you know you can afford and you can play around with some mortgage calculators online to see what kind of term structure you'd like or what your price range might be. If you want to pay $1000 a month it might well turn out you can get something you're happy with on a 25-year term.

And as @Willbacker said, any bonus dollar you can pay off early into your term helps a lot. I remember doing a calculation a few years ago and found that every every extra dollar you knock off the principal saves you about $6 over the life of a 30-year mortgage (compound interest is one of those things the human mind hasn't done a great job of evolving to deal with - probably because maths geeks don't get laid much amirite).

 

[Inqui]

And May 6th was the day the old forum died... RIP

Posts like this is why we need a sad react.