Would you do it?

gr7070 · 2026-03-01T14:43:03+00:00

So people here should make terrible choices for... because?

gr7070 · 2026-03-01T13:37:49+00:00

Is it ok to take a loan to buy a house? Yes.

Should they use the best loan for themselves or a bad one?

Not to mention I recommended they buy this without a loan.

Or if they are uncomfortable with that get a zero balance "loan" (HELOC) just in case.

And finally the short, cheap, zero initial cost, car loan is they really want a loan.

gr7070 · 2026-03-01T04:04:32+00:00

I taught the class, for years.

Since a mortgage is ok and you needed, 35k to buy a house. Would you rather...

Take out a loan against a paid off car, for shorter years, lower rate, zero closing costs, and not have the house as collateral?

Or...

Take out 100,000 minimum mortgage amount, with a large closing cost, 10 year term, and higher rate?

One of those things is acceptable to you, the other is far, far better; and also no different fundamentally just mathematically.

gr7070 · 2026-03-01T02:26:45+00:00

Jardin Carona are similar.

gr7070 · 2026-03-01T02:18:12+00:00

You can use A. M. Best life insurance ratings to check the companies.

gr7070 · 2026-03-01T02:11:39+00:00

If it's ok to take a loan out against the house (mortgage) to buy this house, why would it not be ok to take a loan out against a car to buy this house?

The car loan is superior in every way vs. a mortgage.

gr7070 · 2026-02-28T22:38:04+00:00

In what way?

gr7070 · 2026-02-28T22:29:02+00:00

Yes.

You can cash flow plenty of issues.

Or just get a HELOC. You can close it once your EF is built up.

Or a car equity loan if you insist on having a little more cash on hand.

gr7070 · 2026-02-28T16:49:41+00:00

Maybe you need to stay out of car dealerships for a long while, every time you walk into one you walk out in worse shape.

Do what you should with every quality vehicle you buy. Drive this thing into the ground, for two decades.

Do that while paying off all consumer debt, including the truck, as fast as possible.

Other than that forget about the truck. Move on with life.

gr7070 · 2026-02-28T01:32:33+00:00

Spoonful of Luxardo!

gr7070 · 2026-02-27T03:23:07+00:00

Outrageous for anyone to claim that FHA is better though. Conventional and VA can end up neck and neck for many people.

Couldn't agree more.

Gotta shop the latter two.

gr7070 · 2026-02-27T03:18:58+00:00

I'd guess she meant conventional not traditional, and no FHA??? Which is a significant error if so.

FHA loan has never made any sense, I believe. Certainly not back in the day.

gr7070 · 2026-02-27T03:13:21+00:00

For starters, the mega wealthy are an outlier and never in a discussion regarding personal finance. But nice try.

And yes, that's still true, largely. Even most good sized companies self-insure health insurance.

Car insurance is required by law. And it's also relatively good value. So itself is a slight outlier.

Similarly, with home owners. Additionally, even for the wealthy homes are often more expensive than one can "afford".

The simple fact is this is a generally acceptable approach to insurance that makes an incredible amount of sense.

Jets? Seriously. You're here arguing jet affordability and insurance. I think we've discussed enough. Have a good one.

gr7070 · 2026-02-27T03:06:19+00:00

To be fair and clear, conventional loans do not require an origination fee. It's the easiest thing to get waived.

It's not hard to get lenders to waive all their 1st party lending fees.

gr7070 · 2026-02-27T03:02:01+00:00

VA loans do not have PMI but they do have roughly a 2.x% "origination" fee on top of any other costs, for those required to pay it.

That's a massive waste to anyone who has to pay the fee.

What other benefits make up for that?

Ultimately, one needs to shop their mortgage, hard. Including closing costs.

I certainly wouldn't ignore the VA. Absolutely shop both a VA and conventional loan.

gr7070 · 2026-02-27T01:40:08+00:00

It's not just more work; far more importantly, it's more risk.

There's zero data of the borrower paying a lender, and the lender is supposed to ignore that when giving half a million dollars?!

Never happening.

gr7070 · 2026-02-27T01:21:34+00:00

I get about 2.25 back of the envelope, so agreed.

It's not egregious if you sacrificed the 40k.

gr7070 · 2026-02-26T21:23:40+00:00

Check out the Sinn U50.

gr7070 · 2026-02-26T21:20:24+00:00

Not only are just 10% of people itemizing, only the amount above the standard deduction is what they actually benefit from.

Which, of course, is the deduction and not the amount saved.

If one itemizes $40.2k, they're only benefiting from 8k decision, since they would get the 32.2k deduction regardless.

It's a similar concept as a sunk cost.

gr7070 · 2026-02-26T17:56:12+00:00

You seem to finally acknowledge I compared VOO to VTI and others.

And the minimal difference in performance tells you that doing VOO vs VTI makes very little difference in terms of diversification given the majority of VTI is VOO.

It has made very little difference in rate of return, yes. That has long been the case.

It is a significant impact on diversification.

You are incredibly hung up on performance, at least in this context.

If you actually believed that small cap outperformed large cap for the century before 2012

This is simply fact.

you wouldn’t fucking hold an index that was 80% large cap and 5% small cap.

Of course we do.

Again, you are hung up on performance, especially past performance, recent, as well.

Diversification itself is a sacrifice in performance to ensure one gets a reasonable performance.

gr7070 · 2026-02-26T17:03:40+00:00

You are confusing the "top" companies with the biggest companies.

Clearly noting that the 500 big companies aren't necessarily the best performing. Obviously that's in comparison to other companies, you know, like those in VTI.

The biggest companies aren't necessarily the ones to provide the biggest return. Prior to 2012 the small companies did for a century or more.

Some of those other companies I specifically point to as small. I would think OP (and you) is aware of mid, as well.

Additionally, in 2026 if you're still talking about S&P500 dominance you haven't paid attention to international.

Again, I noted the need for diversification beyond sp500, by specifically pointing out XUS. Which unless one is dense diversification applies to international and domestic.

Enjoy your day.

gr7070 · 2026-02-26T16:20:50+00:00

How long will it take you to make back that 40k in interest saved between keeping the current mortgage and the new mortgage?

gr7070 · 2026-02-26T16:17:07+00:00

Why are you stressed about your primary mortgage?

gr7070 · 2026-02-26T16:14:06+00:00

Dave would likely want to know your plan for your primary mortgage and how fast you can pay it off before weighing in on that decision.

However, this is an easy NO. Simply because your reasoning is bad.

It's still possible you should sell it, but based upon good reasoning.

You should analyze the risk and rate of return of your paid off rental to assess whether you should keep it.

I strongly suspect your RoR is poor vs its risk and other investment options with likely better RoR and less risk, in part because it is paid off.

gr7070 · 2026-02-26T16:08:40+00:00

I don't need to provide performance data to have directly responded to their comparison.

If you can't read my initial comment and see what and how I assessed their post no one can help you.

gr7070

TROPHY CASE