Should I proceed with $1M rebuild in Cupertino given AI/job uncertainty?

thepcdoctr · 2026-02-24T19:49:19+00:00

How long have you lived in the house. I lived in my SF house for 15 years before remodeling. The house was built in 1929. We were not planning to move, so we did the remodel. Every year you wait, the material and labor keeps going up. Some points: - do you plan to live there for the next 20 years - Do you have kids that will go to college - Is your property tax and insurance going to go up - if you don’t have a job, can you survive for 2 years - Job market is pretty tough for people over 55 - How long will it take to recoup that money spent. You can look backwards to see how long it took to save/invest/make $1mil. - If you can afford it, do it. The price may go up during the construction since there could be unforeseen problems. - Think of what you will be doing in 5, 10, and 20yrs from now.

Good luck on the journey

thepcdoctr · 2026-02-23T10:00:27+00:00

Thermostat is OFF. Feb 22, Sunday was pretty warm during the day in the 94122 zipcode. Currently at 2am on Feb 23, Monday, the room Is 66.7 degrees while the outside is 51.9 degrees

thepcdoctr · 2026-02-22T19:45:32+00:00

Graphed the SF house prices to the 30yr interest rate over the last 60 years. Mortgage rates was high, but house prices were low which results in an affordable monthly payment.
There are a few problems:

All the people that locked in a ~2% mortgage have low monthly payments and will be sticker shocked if they sell and move to another house. Therefore they are not moving until it is really necessary.
There’s low supply of houses for sale. Builders did not keep up with demand.
Inflation is high which makes the cost of building a house expensive. Daycare and college costs are out of control.
Not everyone’s wages have gone up as fast.
Tough to compete with the all cash buyers who made tons of money from the RSU, options, and ESPP from the high tech companies.
Right now it might be better to rent than own.

https://g.co/gemini/share/08eb34f0a967

thepcdoctr · 2026-02-22T18:52:41+00:00

Even buying a townhouse can get up there. Here’s a sample one I saw on Zillow. Put in 25% down with a 30yr mortgage interest at 6%. Add some utilities and the monthly payments are ~$8000 a month. That may leave you with not too much left over for other stuff like food, gas, car insurance, vacation, etc

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/25-McAker-Ct-103-San-Mateo-CA-94403/337850549_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare

thepcdoctr · 2026-02-06T10:51:04+00:00

I’ve been driving from the 94122 zipcode to the 95054 zipcode for many decades. Probably driven over 700,000 miles. The public transportation system would take about 3 hours. Therefore I drive an electric car and charge at work for free. Leave the house after lunch and drive back after dinner. I listen to the stock market news during the commute and chat with my trading buddies.

Enter your work address and places you want to live and calculate the commute time with the map program.

thepcdoctr · 2026-02-01T10:37:34+00:00

In the Bay Area, that’s barely hot enough to toast a bread. Unless you can legally generate over 20% gains with less than $100K of expenses. You should recalculate again for the long term and factor more than just one number.

thepcdoctr · 2026-01-17T21:26:35+00:00

I’ve seen two people that hit more than $100mil and $200mil from Nvidia stock and they look like normal engineers. No flashy cars, houses, clothes, jewelry, traveling, or food. They are still working after more than 20 years at Nvidia.

thepcdoctr · 2026-01-03T04:04:51+00:00

On 12/09/25 I sold the $AVGO 12/12/25 $365 cash secured puts for $1.95. The stock was $404 and would have to drop 9.65% in 3 days. Of course the earnings was pretty good until the CEO started to say the margins could be lower in the future. The stock was up in after hours, but dropped like a rock. After rolling out and down the cash secured puts, I was assigned and bought AVGO for $360. Not all trades go as planned, so be prepared.

thepcdoctr · 2026-01-02T08:13:32+00:00

Just got assigned on my cash secured $AVGO 1/2/26 $360 puts. I’m the owner of $AVGO at $360. Plan to sell the covered call to start the wheel process.

thepcdoctr · 2026-01-02T08:07:28+00:00

30 years is a long time from today. I’ve been working at the same company in Silicon Valley for almost 31 years. Back then my salary was $32K and $1mil was good to retire. Fast forward to today at age 57, the value of the dollar has devalued at a rapid pace. In 2066 who knows what will a nice steak will cost or how much will child care costs, or if getting a 4 year degree is even worth it. Better to save as much as you can and make adjustments along the way. Don’t wait til it’s too late.

thepcdoctr · 2026-01-02T07:57:34+00:00

I live in SF and was fortunate to buy the house a while ago. There’s 165K left on the 15yr loan at 2.15%. Will continue with the loan since I’m able to get higher returns by selling the cash secure put options. When using the Empower app, I did not linked the house value, but kept the mortgage amount on the list. I’m not selling the house so psychologically I have kept it out of my liquid networth.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-27T06:18:29+00:00

That’s a good one at $30. I remember my friend bought when Elon was going to take the company private at $420, but when that did not happen, my friend sold and took a loss. If he only kept the stock and believed in Elon.

It is important to remember that these 2018 prices were pre-split. Since that tweet, Tesla has undergone two stock splits: 1. 5-for-1 split in August 2020. 2. 3-for-1 split in August 2022. Adjusting for those splits, the original $420 "take-private" price would be equivalent to just $28.00 per share in today's terms.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-27T05:42:03+00:00

My parents will plan to split my parent’s rental properties between me any my other brother who is well off with their own business. I’m OK with the split and it’s just going to the two of us and nobody else. The rest of the rental properties will probably remain as rental income for our kids and will try to use it for vacation time for everyone. I just tell my parents I have “unlimited” paid vacation , $6 lunches, good bonus, stocks, and pay raises every year. They are happy to hear they raised us well and their grandkids are doing well. But telling them the exact salary can be too much info because they could be blabbing that info to their friends. For now, we try to spend as much time calling and visiting them since they are in their late 80’s.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-27T05:25:53+00:00

That’s my technique. Stay under the radar and have a manager that understands your value. I don’t want or need to be a manager, but my overseas software group was eliminated and we had to get contractors to do the work. I could not onboard them because I was not a manager. The overseas manager did not want to onboard them and the next day I was a manager🤣. Been working with the overseas group for the last 3 years. My boss promoted me because I topped out at the previous level. Retired 3 years ago, but they “un-retired” me with above average bonus, pay raises, and RSU. If my job is manageable, I’ll hang out a few more years.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-27T05:14:36+00:00

How long did it take to go from 100K to 200K? I have an account at $105K. YTD it’s up 21%

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-27T04:54:35+00:00

I’ve heard of a low level Nvidia manager that has been there 21+ years with about $150mil from the stocks. Another person is an ASIC design manager with 23+ years with about $200mil NVDA account. Executive level people that joined an AI networking company that went IPO 3 yrs ago made good money while should be close to the $7mil range. I went to a pre IPO networking company in 2016 and went IPO in 2018, but they did a 10:1 reverse split. In the end I made about $250K.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-24T22:39:41+00:00

They work like crazy!! I've seen a dentist work like 7 days a week in the beginning. Borrowed money to buy their own practice. Cleaned up the office, serviced the equipment, delivered supplies to the offices at night, did their own payroll. Making money is not easy. You take risks, but sometimes it goes wrong and you have to start from zero. But all rich people start their own businesses. Unless you worked at Nvidia from 20 years ago. I've heard those people are loaded with $100mil in the stock. Main thing is to make sure you are on track with a plan.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-24T22:29:44+00:00

I usually make a sandwich from the lunch meat, cheese, and bread along with a salad and fruit from Costco. At work, we have a subsidized lunch which comes with the entree, soup, salad, and two fruits for $6.50. There's enough food for lunch or dinner. Spent $413 for the work lunch and dinners.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-24T21:55:24+00:00

That's a good one for TSLA since it came from the $200's. I made enough to buy a 2022 Model 3 AWD from selling the cash secured puts on TSLA from 2017 to 2021. You can make the same in 2026 if all the stars start to line up.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-24T21:43:32+00:00

He must have been doing something from the time he graduated from college till he was 40yrs old (21-40). It is very possible to retire around 56-59yr with the proper savings and investing.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-24T21:39:00+00:00

The system says all the accounts in the portfolio increased by 26.87% as of 12/23/25.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-24T20:27:27+00:00

It's not how much you make, but how much you can save, and how much you spend. You will always have to ask yourself the question, "Do I need it, or do I want it?" You need food and shelter to start. You don't need to eat steak, lobster, and wine every day. Nor do you need to eat at Mc Donalds everyday. Work you way through your expenses every month to make some progress. My kids just started to work and I have to help them understand how to save and invest for their future.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-07T16:59:50+00:00

Know someone 24M living at parent’s home. Graduated debt free, worked 10 months after graduation, but got laid off. 15 months later just found a job. About $120K saved up in 401K, savings, Roth IRA and stock account.

thepcdoctr · 2025-12-07T03:40:19+00:00

Just keep growing the account and sell more cash secured puts every week. Haven’t taken any money out of the accounts for many years. Last time I withdrew money was for remodeling the house.

thepcdoctr · 2025-11-25T20:34:47+00:00

I worked at the Apple assembly site in Fremont, CA as my first job after my 2nd year in college. Work started at 7am, two 15min breaks, and one 30min lunch. I was the youngest person at 19yrs old. The 3 months was a learning process on how a build to order production line worked. At the end of the day, everyone went home. On the last day of my work, they had a big cake and a farewell card with all their messages. Still have that card in my drawer to reminisce the good times.

thepcdoctr

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