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Afford Anything | Make Smart Money Choices
Q&A: Retirement Math That Actually Works; Cashing In on the World Cup; and Why Your Parents' Housing Advice Is Wrong
01:18:07
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- [00:00]
Paula Pant
Joe, have you ever lived in a city that's had a huge sporting event come to town?
- [00:05]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Not when I lived there, but after I left Detroit, Michigan did.
- [00:08]
Paula Pant
Oh, which event was it?
- [00:11]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Super Bowl. And then they also had the draft. They had the record last year for the number of people to attend an NFL draft.
- [00:19]
Paula Pant
Oh, that's amazing. Well, we're going to answer a question today from someone who's wondering if and how a big sporting event coming to town might impact real estate values. We're also going to hear from someone who's wondering what to do if the 4% rule doesn't quite fit. And we'll hear from someone who's toggling between the rent versus buy conundrum and is intrigued by the idea that renting isn't necessarily throwing money away. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice has a trade off and that applies to your time, your money, your focus, your energy. This show covers five pillars. Financial, psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's double I fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant every other episode. Ish. I answer questions that come from you and I do so with my buddy, the former financial planner Joe Sal Sehi. What's up, Joe?
- [01:11]
Joe Saul-Sehy
That means I'm part of the ish.
- [01:12]
Paula Pant
Yeah, yeah, you're totally ish movement. You're so ish.
- [01:16]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Welcome to the shows with Joe. Ish. You know, you know, Texarkana for a while had some major sporting events. We had a bowl here. Look at me. Like, no.
- [01:28]
Paula Pant
Yeah. Like mini golf. Like, no.
- [01:31]
Joe Saul-Sehy
We did actually have a bowl game called the Live United Bowl. It wasn't a major event. It was held at the high school stadium and it was for Division 2 teams that didn't make the Division 2 playoffs. But we did have a bowl game. It was pretty exciting.
- [01:42]
Paula Pant
Congratulations.
- [01:43]
Joe Saul-Sehy
And the rodeo comes to town every year.
- [01:45]
Paula Pant
Oh, that's fun. I love the rodeo.
- [01:48]
Joe Saul-Sehy
And what more do you need, Paula? What more do you need?
- [01:50]
Paula Pant
Deep fried Oreos.
- [01:51]
Joe Saul-Sehy
I mean, how can you not deep fried anything? Welcome to Texas. Well, wait a minute. The person who we're going to be talking to, they're talking about a Texas town, too. They are deep fries, a lot of stuff.
- [02:04]
Paula Pant
That's right. They are talking about a Texas town. We're going to get to their question second. But before we do, we're going to first start with this question from Becky.
- [02:14]
Becky
Hey, Paula, I love your show and I've been listening for over a year and I've benched most of your old podcasts I have a question which I have not heard before. My question has to do with retirement and drawdown, specifically when your plan doesn't fit into any traditional box such as operating off the 4% rule backstory my husband retired last year after 30 years in law enforcement. We made a huge leap and moved from the west coast to Southwest Florida to explore a new adventure. He's 55 and I am 50. We are taking a sabbatical to reset and then I know we'll both work in some capacity. We just aren't sure what that will look like yet. My husband has a great pension which has survivorship. This pension covers about 70% of our expenses, including a generous travel budget. I'll receive a similar or smaller pension at the end of 2029. At that point our expenses are pretty much covered if you look at Social Security. Even if reduced, there's a good chance we never have to touch our nest egg, but we have mixed feelings about that. We have an 18 year old son and would love to apply some of the principles from Vibroek in terms of helping him out earlier in life with the house or something of that nature when the time comes. Right now we have about 1.3 million in retirement. We don't need to access this at all this year as we saved enough cash to float us for our sabbatical. About half of this is in a traditional 457 so we can access it at any time. The rest sits with Vanguard and an ira. After this year we only need to access anywhere between 1 to 3% of our portfolio annually to cover expenses through 2029 when that pension hits. And that's with zero income, which I know won't be the case. In terms of other goals, I'm firmly with Paula's perspective on the mortgage being paid off. It is our only debt. We have 200,000 on a home valued at about 1.4 million. We have an adjustable rate mortgage which is now 2.75 and this doesn't reset until March of 29th. We want this paid off by 2029, earlier if possible. The max reset would be 7.75 and I suspect the balance would be so low it wouldn't be terrible. Paying it off would free up 12,000 a year for principal and interest. Our other dream is to perhaps purchase a boat. This would probably run about 75 to 100,000 for the boat and lift. So the question is, how do you gauge spending when your drawdown is so irregular? Taking more than 4% out in any given year makes me nervous, but it doesn't seem like that's the rule we should be following. Is it okay to take out larger lump sums here and there to perhaps purchase the boat in a few years or even pay out the house in 2029? How do you stress test that? Would you just take your 4% each year and throw your extra at the house? I'd love to hear any creative ideas you have that could calm our nerves and have us enjoy some of this money. Thank you so much for what you do, Becky.
- [04:40]
Paula Pant
Thank you for the question. What you're talking about reminds me of something that Christine Benz wrote about in her book how to Retire. She recommends that if you have big lump sums that you want to spend, keep that money in a separate bucket from your normal drawdown money. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to physically move it to a different account because, of course, there could be tax consequences. But mentally, mentally put that money in a separate bucket. And so the example that Christine Benz gives in her book is that if you want to, let's say, travel for the first 10 years of your retirement, you want a batch of money, a bucket of money that you are committed to whittling down to zero. So you mentally earmark a certain bucket of money at, let's say, the age of 55 or 60, and you commit to zero that by a given age, by the age of 65 or by the age of 70, that bucket is going to go down to zero. And the goal of that bucket is to spend everything by a certain age because that ensures that you will actually enjoy some of the money that you've worked so hard to accumulate. And so that's what I would recommend for you when it comes to goals like buying the boat or paying down the mortgage or any other major goal that you have, mentally earmark it into a separate bucket and keep it distinct from the 4% bucket.
- [06:02]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Well, and that's why, Paula, my favorite rule out of all the rules is a rule I call the Becky rule. Really? Really, Paula? I like the Becky rule.
- [06:12]
Paula Pant
Wow.
- [06:13]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Because when we start leaning on these rules of thumb, like the 4% rule, I think we're making a mistake. We're letting these rules, you know, and I ranted about this the last time I was here, but I think we end up letting what can we do based on arbitrary numbers, make decisions that we should be basing on with our lifestyle, with what do we want to do and can we afford to do it? And that's the Becky Rule. Right. And so to get that, do exactly, I think what you're talking about. Now, if you want to bend this 4 or 5% rule around, I think what you do is you take out the boat, take out the extra lump sum expenses, and then you can look at, okay, does the amount of money I want to spend exceed 4 or 5%, depending on what number you're going to use? If it doesn't, then you're probably okay. If it does, then you might have a problem. And I say might because I think it's so much better, it's so much more effective to just plot out how much money you want to spend, look at what rate of return you need on your money, create an asset mix that will provide that rate of return that you need and that you're comfortable with and that will get rid of, Becky, the consternation that you have. Because the consternation in my mind comes from using any rule other than the Becky rule. The Becky rule is design a financial plan based on you, not based on 4%, 5%. I get really excited when I see the aha open when they get close to being finished with a financial plan. And by the way, you know, do you know how long it takes to use these calculators to figure out how to create this on your own, Paula?
- [08:05]
Paula Pant
I'm guessing 30 minutes.
- [08:08]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Yeah, maybe. Okay, let's say you've never used any of these calculators before. Maybe 90. Oh, what a gratifying use of 90.
- [08:18]
Paula Pant
Minutes, the length of a movie that.
- [08:19]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Will set your mind so much at ease by digging into the numbers. And I'll tell you what you're gonna find. You're gonna find all the Achilles heels, which Becky's already finding. Right. Because she's thinking through. She's in the early stage of this, I feel like where she's thinking through, well, I've got this big rock, I got this big rock. I got this big rock. And those are important to identify. And the fact that she's already done it is pretty kick ass.
- [08:42]
Paula Pant
Yeah.
- [08:43]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Because the worst thing for a financial plan is I decided today after going to a boat show, I'm buying a boat tomorrow.
- [08:51]
Paula Pant
Right.
- [08:52]
Joe Saul-Sehy
That's horrible. But the fact that she knows she's going to want one on X date and that she wants all these other things, I love seeing the timeline in my head as she was explaining her situation. And what's interesting about that, Becky, also is nobody's case fits the 4% rule. You are less different than other people than you think, which is Why I rail against using this set rule. All of our withdrawal strategies when you get close to retirement are lumpy. You buy a car, you're going to need a car every so many years. You buy a car that's lumpy, you have this big trip that you've been dreaming of your entire life, that's lumpy, that's a big number. You have these big, these big rocks in your financial plan. So if you want a rule of thumb it, which you could tell I don't love, what you do is take out all those rocks like Paul is talking about, segregate those into a separate account, and then see if the 4% rule works for the rest of it. Yuck. Throw open my mouth. Horrible. But that'll give you what you're looking for. I think what you're truly looking for though is what do I want to do? How much does it cost to do it? And can I create an income stream that will make that happen?
- [10:08]
Paula Pant
Yeah, and you're correct, Jo. Every person in retirement, as they think through their withdrawal, has lumpy outlays. If you want to help contribute towards a child's wedding, that's a big one time lump sum. If you want to set aside an endowment, maybe you have a charitable goal and you want to set aside an endowment specifically for a charity or charitable giving, that's a one time lumpy endowment. Creating transfer. Life doesn't happen in this neat linear 4% framework. And I think the beauty of the 4% rule is that it gives you a starting point. It keeps you from the temptation of thinking, oh, I have $500,000, that must be a ton of money, I guess I can retire. Because on the surface that does sound like a lot of money. But when you apply the 4% rule to it, you realize that that would ustain on average $20,000 a year worth of lifestyle. And so it's a broad generalized rule that allows you to not look at a large lump sum and assume that that is more than it is.
- [11:26]
Joe Saul-Sehy
And you know, $500,000 is a ton of money. But I do love that. I mean, the thing that I hear from financial planners still all the time today is with the market going up the way that it is, people that don't know math are trying to take out 7,8% of their portfolio every year. And Paula, for some of these people, it's been working. And so when the financial planner goes, hey, this isn't sustainable, perhaps person's like, wow, look at the last 70, I mean, it's been pretty good. Besides 2022. It was pretty darn good. Like, yeah, no, this is, this is meant for disaster.
- [12:00]
Paula Pant
Right.
- [12:00]
Joe Saul-Sehy
So I do think back of the envelope, kind of like the rule of 72. It can very quickly start to point you in the right direction and go, yeah, it's a bad idea, it's a good idea. But then I think there's so much treasure in then digging into your own plan after that.
- [12:16]
Paula Pant
Right, exactly. In fact, when Bill Bengan came up with the 4% rule, his initial motivation was that back then, this is in the 90s. Back then, many financial planners were actually advising their clients to take out 7 or 8% a year. And that was the inspiration for Bill Behnken to do the research that led to the 4% rule.
- [12:35]
Joe Saul-Sehy
It's crazy, right? That is just crazy. I just can't in my head even imagine that working like, oh, yeah, no, take out more. That's this is going to end well. This also has other outcomes which initially, when I started recommending this to people were unintended on my part. And then as I saw developing your own plan put into practice by developing your own plan. I don't care if you work with a professional or do it yourself, but either way, you've got to understand it yourself. And let me tell you what the unintended consequence is. It's pretty awesome, Paula, is that when we have a stock market like we had just here recently when we had two really bad down days in a row, if you're working from plan Becky, and you know why you pick these investments and you know what the volatility level of these investments is, you know your plan to harvest these investments and how you're doing it, right, you're going to stick with the plan. Because the problem is not the volatility of the market. That's going to happen. It's going to happen all the time. The problem is you, if you're working off rules of thumb, you're going to blow up your plan because you don't understand what the hell you have and you don't know why you have it. And this is why I don't like chasing best investment. It's why I don't like chasing hot investment today. Because if I buy Nvidia and then some Chinese company comes along with a solution that undercuts all of AI that could never happen.
- [14:13]
Paula Pant
Right, Right. Deep seek.
- [14:15]
Joe Saul-Sehy
And we see that happen. Paula, you're holding on to this company that you bought because it's the hot company. And now what's your cell methodology? Is it still hot. Is it going to recover? Is it not going to recover? What do I do? I'll give you another hypothetical that could never happen a million years. A Dude who ran PayPal, then creates SpaceX, takes over a social media platform and then gets involved in government. And so what are we seeing now? Should I sell Tesla? Should I buy Tesla? Is it going to come back? Are people going to, you know, are all people that are angry with Elon, are they going to. What are they going to do? If the only reason you hold it is because it's a hot stock, you're left with no good options and no matter what happens, you're going to second guess yourself. If you sell it, you know what's going to happen. The damn thing's going to go up and if you don't sell it and you hold on, it's going to keep going down. And no matter what happens, you're going to get, you're going to second guess yourself. Which is why the methodology that I espouse is not to win more. It's to avoid all of this inner turmoil and instead focus on living your best life. Because if you start with your best life and then use this like I will, you know, I'm planting seeds that I can harvest later at the right time. I'm not choosing the best investment quotes. I'm choosing an investment that fits the goal period, and then the money's there and I don't have to worry about it. It's a much more boring approach. But you're not, you know, every investment to some degree is a bet at the end, but I'd rather bet on. I know that I'm buying the boat five years from now and I know how much money I'm going to spend on that boat. And I know the investments historically have been the optimal investments between now and then over a five year time frame. I like that bet better than is Nvidia going to recover?
- [16:11]
Paula Pant
So what you're saying then, in the context of Becky's question, is not only to mentally earmark certain expenses in segregated buckets, but also to asset allocate accordingly based on that timeline.
- [16:25]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Yeah. And then through any of the software programs that she has, she asked about stress testing. Any software program, Becky, that does retirement planning software. You can get the easy ones through any of the big brokerage firms. They all have these tools that are good starter tools. You can go and do a more robust calculator. Obviously a professional, if you pay them one time is going to have some great calculators. That they can help you with, but you can stress test it by going, I want to spend X amount of money, where does that leave me? And if I decide I want to spend a thousand dollars more a month, where does that leave me? I want to spend $5,000 more a month. And what I would do is, especially if you work with a professional, I would then build milestones, Paula, so that I know the route. And let me tell you why. There's going to be other. I love the word lumps. There's going to be other lumps that come along, right?
- [17:16]
Paula Pant
I love the word lumpy. I think it's a visual description of exactly what we're talking about. Life is lumpy.
- [17:21]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Well, so let's say it's two years from now and we know they're not going to spend up to the 4 or 5% rule. Right. She said I can not touch it. Maybe touch 1% of it, whatever. If her milestone is that she needs to have X amount of money three years from now and life gets lumpy and she's at that amount, plus she has $80,000 extra that she didn't plan on for the goal, well, then she doesn't have to worry about the lump because she knows that using her milestone approach, that she's still going to be okay as she moves further and further into retirement. So I like knowing what the excess is. I'll tell you who does this in a different way in practice. And he's done this with his own financial plan. Our mutual friend Paul Merriman's talked about this. He has this cool plan whereby when the stock market goes down and he gets behind on his plan, he and his spouse use that as a signal the next year to tour the Pacific Northwest where he lives.
- [18:24]
Paula Pant
That's right.
- [18:24]
Joe Saul-Sehy
So he explores the North Cascades, he explores Olympic national park. He goes around, you know, Mount Rainier, does those things.
- [18:31]
Paula Pant
Essentially they take a staycation.
- [18:33]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Yeah, yeah. And he doesn't spend any money. But then when he makes up the deficit in the go go years, they do their around the world trips, they go to Europe, they go to Africa, they go, they go to Asia, they go all over the place. It's fantastic. That's kind of my thinking when you know what the milestone is and you know, if you're ahead or behind. And then what I love about Paul's approach is they gamify it a little bit. It's pretty fun.
- [18:57]
Paula Pant
Yeah. And Paul's approach reminds me of something that J.L. collins often says, which is flexibility is the only True security.
- [19:04]
Joe Saul-Sehy
That's interesting, Becky.
- [19:05]
Paula Pant
Actually, what I love about what you're doing is by virtue of taking a sabbatical, especially at the ages of 50 and 55, you are test driving some really fun ideas for a little while, you're taking a sabbatical, then you're going to go back into doing some type of paid work. But you're giving yourself time, you're test driving some ideas, you're experimenting. It's like career day in high school.
- [19:33]
Joe Saul-Sehy
It's so fun, Right. For anybody that's listened to us for any amount of time, it's exactly what we both espouse.
- [19:41]
Paula Pant
Yeah.
- [19:41]
Joe Saul-Sehy
This idea of melding what you're doing today into your retirement so that you don't end up with this huge ball of disappointment of these things that in your brain were really cool that it turns out you didn't really love when you get there.
- [19:55]
Paula Pant
Well, and that's the beauty of a sabbatical. Because the thing is, if you follow this linear pathway of work, work, work, work, work, boom. Retire. It's such a binary on, off, switch that you don't have any experience in the skill set of retirement. Because being retired, like anything, is a skill. And like any skill, it develops with practice. And so by virtue of taking a sabbatical, Becky, as you're doing now, you're able to practice that skill of doing it. Well, Becky, between your husband's pension and your pension, you're right. It's entirely plausible that you might not need to tap much of your money. And so during your sabbatical, take that time to reflect on any other lumps, right? Any other buckets that you might want to shift out of the general drawdown bucket and into the large one time expense of a really cool thing bucket. Because I think those buckets, those lumps, are where a lot of life happens. So thank you, Becky, for the question. Enjoy the boat, enjoy the sabbatical, and congratulations on paying off your mortgage when that happens. It's a very freeing feeling. Up next, we're going to hear a caller from a mystery town in Texas who is wondering how major sporting events coming to town might impact real estate values.
- [21:37]
Joe Saul-Sehy
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- [22:14]
Paula Pant
So I've mentioned on this show that I'm helping out my parents right now with this renovation project that they're doing. They just bought a home that's a one story home, but it's a fixer upper. I have a lot of experience doing renovations so I've been giving them pointers, helping them make decisions. And one of the things that I did was I gave them a Wayfair catalog. I actually handed them the physical print catalog, but the website is even more robust. Wayfair is the best kept secret for home improvement. Like if you're redoing your bathroom, they've got vanities, lights, mirrors, toilets, tubs. If you're redoing your kitchen, they've got appliances, hardware, lighting, tile. If you're fixing up your shed or doing stuff for your lawn, like they've got this massive, massive selection. So they make it really easy to tackle your spring home goals no matter what your budget is. And there's free and easy delivery even on the big stuff. So whether you're looking for flooring or light fixtures or faucets, you can find all of your home improvement must haves in one convenient place. Shop the best selection of home improvement online. Get renovating with wayfair. Head to wayfair.com right now. That's W A Y F A I-R.com wayfair every style, every home. When you think about businesses with really impressive sales like Momofuku or feastables by MrBeast or even a legacy business like Mattel, you know you've got a lot of things that are going right. There's a product with demand, there's a focused brand. But there's also a business behind the business that makes selling and buying simple. And for millions of businesses, that's Shopify. No one does selling better than Shopify. Home of the number one checkout on the planet. They're not so secret. Secret is shop pay, which boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going. If you're into growing your business, your commerce platform needs to be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling, whether that's online or face to face. Because businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout that Momofuku and Mr. Beast and Mattel uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period for three months at shopify.com Paula all lowercase go to shopify.com Paula to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com welcome back. Our next question comes from Chris. Hi. I'd like to get your insight and opinion into how major sporting events in a city impact commercial and residential real estate values here in Dallas. The soccer World cup and the Olympics are coming up. Can we expect to see a significant bump in real estate values because of these events? Just like to get your opinion.
- [25:11]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Thank you Chris.
- [25:13]
Paula Pant
That's a great question. And we now have the mystery city revealed, the mystery city of Texas. It's Dallas.
- [25:21]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Dallas, Texas, my closest big city, two and a half hours away.
- [25:28]
Paula Pant
Dallas, known for its proximity to Texarkana.
- [25:31]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Exactly the two and a half hour away hometown of Joseph Sihai. That's what you actually see that on the sign coming in.
- [25:37]
Paula Pant
Paula True story.
- [25:38]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Coming into town.
- [25:40]
Paula Pant
CHRIS Generally, if a city is large and well established, such as when the Olympics came to London or when the Olympics went to Beijing, often there is no significant property value bump that is associated with the arrival of a major sporting event. However, if the city in question is not commonly on the map, if it's a up and coming city, an example of this would be 1996 Atlanta. If it's an up and coming city and that city is developing a lot of new infrastructure in order to support the influx of people who are arriving, then there can be a long term bump. In other words, the major sporting event can be an inflection point that begins to drive growth. And again, I'll use the example of 1996 Atlanta. In order to prepare for the Olympic Games coming to Atlanta. The city of Atlanta built new sports venues, improved streets, improved sidewalks, altered housing patterns. It constructed 75,000 new hotel rooms between 1990 to 1996. They installed new lighting and new roads, new sidewalks, planted new trees. They built Olympic Stadium, which is now Turner Field. And they expanded the marta, which is the local train system. They, they expanded the MARTA by adding a bunch of new lines. They improved existing lines. So there was a lot of citywide development that took place in order for Atlanta to prepare to host the Centennial Olympic Games. And that created an economic stimulus inside of Atlanta that helped spur growth. And what we've seen in Atlanta was tremendous growth between 1990 and and today. But the many people, you know, Atlanta historians will really point to the 96 Olympics as that inflection point. Now we didn't see that same story in London because London's already an established city. They already have world class public transportation. And so London didn't need the economic stimulus, it didn't need the inflection point. London is already a world class financial center. And so yes, London had certain improvements. They expanded a few rail lines, they created the Westfield Stratford shopping centre. London also suffered from some fairly negative economic impacts as well, including neighborhood displacement, a focus on the wrong type of infrastructure, the infrastructure that suited the Olympic Games but didn't actually suit the needs of Londoners. And so there was a study that was done by the University of Portsmouth that looked at the long term legacy of the 2012 London Olympics and found, quote, only a slight short lived boost in property values after the IOC announcement in 2005 and after the 2012 Games. Dr. Christina Filippou, who is an associate professor in accounting and sport finance at the University of Portsmouth, actually found that the 2012 London Olympics served as, quote, a cautionary tale. While there were successes in urban regeneration, the benefits did not necessarily extend to the original local community, end quote. So what we have in those two examples are two very different scenarios. Atlanta, which benefited greatly from the 96 Olympics, and London, which had at best mixed results from the 2012 Olympics.
- [29:35]
Joe Saul-Sehy
I think the question, Paula, because I also went back and looked at the last four Olympic Games to see if I could find anything that would be directly attributed to big sporting events. I also looked at, speaking of the super bowl, looked at events like the super bowl, the World Series, he mentioned World cup action. What I saw generally instead was these events were attracted to economically robust areas already. And if a municipality was moving up, this maybe accelerated the movement a little for a little while, like you saw. Yeah, but it was kind of like it was much more the tail. Economic certainty attracted these events, not the other way around. These did not. You know, and even in a place like Detroit, when Detroit got the super bowl, you saw a lot of things happen in downtown, but a lot of it was window dressing. And Detroit, which was in an economic funk at the time the super bowl was there, continued on that funk until other forces came in. Now, did the super bowl help that? Yes, but it was one of many other factors. So I don't think if I'm a real estate investor, I am chasing these big sporting events as a way of identifying places where I'm going to want to buy property.
- [31:00]
Paula Pant
Right, exactly. That's very well said. You've got certain cities, Salt Lake City, in addition to Atlanta. We're already on an upward trajectory. These major events continue to spur that momentum. But when you're talking about a city like LA or London, it often Becomes more of a distraction than anything else.
- [31:24]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Yeah, yeah. A lot of city expenses. I mean, police, firefighters, urban development programs, all kind of get parked while these are going on.
- [31:36]
Paula Pant
Right.
- [31:37]
Joe Saul-Sehy
And don't get me wrong, I mean, it could be a good thing. It can be a great thing for a city, like you said, but reliable data in every case, probably not.
- [31:47]
Paula Pant
Well, I think one of the best examples is when Qatar hosted the World cup in 2022. Because Qatar spent an enormous amount of money building a lot of stadiums, it was the most expensive World cup ever held. What's indisputable is that the World cup gave Qatar its first major opportunity to develop a non hydrocarbon economy. According to the Michigan Journal of Economics, Qatar saw an immediate infusion of 1.56 billion in revenue, but more importantly, saw an increase in tourism, a substantial increase that continues to persist. So in the year of the World cup in 2022, Qatar welcomed 1.18 million. Qatar welcomed 1.18 million international visitors, which was a 300% year to date increase. But that awareness of Qatar on the world stage has continued to persist and Qatar continues to welcome more tourists. The Qatari government reports that they expect tourism to triple by 2030 as a direct result of the attention that they received on the world stage through hosting the World Cup. So I think that that's a prime example of the World cup really fueling economic development in places that are up and coming, by contrast. Chris, you're based in Dallas. Dallas is a well established city.
- [33:20]
Joe Saul-Sehy
You're seeing cranes all over Dallas right now, Paula, and lots of development. I'm thinking about areas especially south of, of downtown, which have historically not had much economic development in the last many years. But now you have these wonderful areas like the Bishop Arts District and others where there's just so much work going on around the, the Dallas Fort Worth area in general. What stinks about that though is it's becoming hard to find affordable housing anywhere close to the downtown area.
- [33:59]
Paula Pant
Well, maybe they should move to Texarkana.
- [34:01]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Tons of affordable housing here and wonderful, wonderful people come this way. Just come two and a half hours and you're, you're great. You know, it's funny, I know you're joking, but you know, you look at some of these cities that people don't think about. We were talking about Detroit earlier. You know, there's, there have been lots of people pointing at Detroit and buying houses in that area. Like looking at some of these places that a lot of people ignored for a long time. And that's where you're able to make some good money as a landlord.
- [34:32]
Paula Pant
Maybe those are the true beneficiaries, are not the established cities themselves, but rather the surrounding areas, the overlooked surrounding areas. So in conclusion, Chris, don't use the presence of an up and coming major event as an indicator of where to invest. Don't go chasing these events as buying signals. Thank you for the question, Chris. Hey there, it's Paula. I'm recording this section after the fact. The next part of today's episode that you're about to hear is my favorite part because it's when I go on a rant about the myth that quote, unquote, renting is throwing money away. Enjoy that. That's coming up next. But before we get to that, I wanted to record this because everything else that you're hearing today in today's episode, Joe and I recorded three, three weeks ago. Three weeks ago in economic terms was a lifetime ago because in the last three weeks the stock market has gone up and down and up and down. And you know, people talk about bull market or bear market. I heard somebody call it the kangaroo market because it's just like bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. And that understandably, we can crack jokes about kangaroos all day, but understandably has a lot of people very anxious. And I know that because I've been hearing from you through Twitter, through Instagram, I've been hearing from a lot of you that you're feeling nervous about tariffs and trade wars and the performance of the stock market as a whole. I'd like to take a moment, if I may, to steady some nerves. First, here's the weird paradox about markets. Almost everyone agrees that we'll be better off in 30 years, but no one knows what's going to happen next month. And our fears and hopes about what will happen in the next month or in the next three to six months, those are the ideas that drive stock prices on a day to day basis. What's happening in the stock market right now is like everyone collectively is driving from California to New York and we know that we're going to get there eventually. But along the road we take these detours to Arizona and then up to Montana and then down to Dallas and then up to Wisconsin and then down to Alabama until finally we reach New York. So there's buying, there's selling, there's recessionary fears, there's exuberance. Again, there are moments when The S&P 500 itself starts looking like a meme stock because the markets are being hyper reactive. But in the midst of all of this, I urge you to ignore the noise and focus on the long term. Because nearly everyone agrees that the long term outlook is good. But the next six to 12 months we don't know. And it's likely going to be rough for a little while. But remember, it was rough in 2008. It felt like the end of the world in 2008. But the people who remained optimistic and just kept investing and did not panic sell are the ones who succeeded. So that's the first point I'd like to make. The second point is that when you look at your portfolio, it's tempting to anchor off the highest value it's ever had. And if you do that, then anything less than an all time high feels like a loss. And what a tremendous bar to hold your portfolio to, a mental bar that it must always exceed its all time high. That's a demanding anchor. So avoid the temptation to anchor off the all time high and instead look at the 10 year trajectory of your portfolio. Look at its current value as compared to where it was 10 years ago. And if you say, well, Paula, I wasn't investing 10 years ago, well then, first of all, welcome to the world of investing. We're happy that the newcomers have arrived. And second of all, how lucky are you to be a newcomer at a time of turbulence? Because times of turbulence are amazing buying opportunities. And again, I will refer you to the people who were newcomers into the market in 2008 or before that, the people who were newcomers in 2001 made serious, serious gains. So if you're a beginner, know that times of turbulence are the best time to be a beginner. And if you're not a beginner, if you've been in the game for at least 10 years, then look at the 10 year performance of your portfolio. Don't anchor off the all time highs. Look at what it's done over the course of the last decade. And what you'll see is that despite the noise, you've done well. The thing about the stock market is that it's an area where optimists succeed while pessimists sit on the sidelines. And yes, I understand that we are watching a massive economic experiment in real time. And there are many things that we don't know. We don't know if we're going to go into a recession or not, but there is at least a 50, 50 likelihood that we will. That's an opportunity, that's a buying opportunity. We don't know what's going to happen with bond prices. We saw bond Yields spike rapidly and bonds are the real heartbeat of the economy. If you want to understand the economy, look at what the bond market is doing. It's the heartbeat, it's the pulse. There is a very real likelihood that the 90 day pause in tariffs may have been spurred by the spike in bond yields. And if you have questions about whether or not the US Dollar is going to continue to be the world leader, or if you want to know what's going to happen with the levels of debt that we as a country need to refinance, the answers to all of that lay in the bond market. So don't watch the headlines, because headlines are intended to scare you. Headlines are designed to provoke fear and outrage because that's what generates clicks and eyeballs and likes and shares and comments. That's how the algorithm is organized. So don't worry about what the headlines say. If you want real information, signal and not noise, track the bond market. And if you want to know what to do, it's stay the course, do not panic, sell, keep buying regularly, dollar cost average. And remember that recessions are opportunities. I feel very, very lucky. I was thinking about this this morning. I'm a millennial, which means I was freshly out of undergrad right at the time that the 2008 crisis struck. I feel enormously lucky because that meant that I started investing at the bottom of the market just by the good fortune of being a millennial, which I firmly believe that we were the generation that just struck gold when it came to timing. We were young during the 2008 crisis at the bottom of the market. And that meant that we got to spend our 20s buying in and starting our portfolios in 2008-2009-2010-2011 and wow, our first decade plus as investors, it was an 11 year bull run. I genuinely attribute a lot of my success to the fact that I happened to be in my 20s in 2008. So again, to those of you who are just entering the market, remember that every crisis is an opportunity to to quote Littlefinger from Game of Thrones, chaos isn't a pit, chaos is a ladder. So that's what I would say to those of you who are new and to those of you who have investments, who've been in the game for a while. Remember, do not anchor off of your all time highs, anchor off of your cost basis and continue to invest. I'll give you the second part of Littlefinger's quote. You know, he says chaos isn't a pit, chaos is a ladder. The next part of the quote, many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them and some are given a chance to climb, they refuse. And then he says a few other things and then he says only the ladder is real, the climb is all there is. And so what he's saying is that you times of instability create opportunity. Sometimes if you're climbing the ladder, you fall and in this case your portfolio falls. And if the fall breaks you, or if you refuse to get back on the ladder and continue climbing, well, that's how you end up at the bottom. But if you continue to climb, if you get back on the ladder and just keep climbing, that's how you ascend. I should add, by the way, that I am well aware that Littlefinger is not, broadly speaking, a role model to emulate, but he is undoubtedly a great businessman. I'll be writing quite a bit more in our newsletter, which is free affordanything.com newsletter. That's affordanything.com newsletter. I'll be writing more detailed thoughts there. So with all of that said, we're going to take one more break to hear from our sponsors and when we return, I'm going to go on a rant about the myth that quote unquote renting is throwing money away. That's up next. This is a message from sponsor Intuit. TurboTax Taxes was dealing with piles of paperwork and frustrating forms and then waiting and wondering and worrying if you were going to get any money back. Now taxes is easily uploading your forms to a TurboTax expert who's matched to your unique tax situation. An expert who's backed by the latest technology which cross checks millions of Data points for 100% accuracy. While they work on your taxes, you get real time updates on their progress and you get the most money back guaranteed. All while you go about your day. No stressing, no worrying, no waiting. Now this IS taxes Intuit TurboTax get an expert now on TurboTax.com only available with TurboTax live full service real time updates only in iOS mobile app. See guarantee details@turbotax.com guarantees get in the Zone Auto Zone Annie's first oil change wasn't as hard as she thought because she went to AutoZone where a friendly AutoZoner helped her find the right oil and save on an oil filter. He explained the job and showed her free how to's on autozone.com when she.
- [45:42]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Was done, Autozone recycled her old oil for free. No hassles, just help. Everything you need. Nothing you don't get in the zone.
- [45:52]
Paula Pant
Autozone restrictions apply. Small Business Owners State Farm is there with small business insurance to fit your specific needs. Whether you're starting a new venture or growing an existing one, State Farm helps you choose the right coverage to protect what matters most. Working with a local State Farm agent helps you understand your coverage options, offering local support to help you achieve your goals. Focus on turning your passion into a thriving business, Knowing your insurance can change as your business grows. State Farm here to help you succeed with your business. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there Our final question today comes from Peyton.
- [46:40]
Chris
Hey Paul and Joe. I'm listening to the March 4, 2025 episode where you are discussing the calculus to buy versus rent a home. Paul, you said not to get you started on the axiom that renting is throwing money away because you have a lot to say and I say don't threaten me with a good time. I would love to hear that explanation, A because it's, I think, a misconception and B because I'd love something to share with my parents who are pressuring me to buy a home. I live in Salt Lake City where it's slightly more advantageous to rent. I am currently planning to retire early, so I'm funneling everything I have to save toward tax advantaged retirement accounts and I don't really want to divert anything or pull anything out of that for a down payment. Only reason that I could see that it would be worth buying, at least for me, would be to lock in my housing costs. I got spooked really bad after the pandemic when my rent went up 23% over two years and I don't know how to budget for retirement if your housing cost goes up that much or could go up that much, such a big piece of your budget. So anyway, I don't want to pull 60 grand out of my like $140,000 approximate net worth. That's mostly in tax advantaged retirement accounts. Some of it's in brokerage accounts so it's a little bit more accessible. But anyway, I think that would be a really fun conversation, whether it's for this situation or just in general that renting is not throwing money away. Appreciate you guys. Appreciate all the words of wisdom and the thoughtful consideration that you guys always give for questions and looking forward to hearing back.
- [48:26]
Paula Pant
Peyton oh, all right, let's do it. You've unleashed me and I am ready to go. First of all, if your mom and dad are listening to this, hi Peyton's mom and dad. I want to Repeat, for the sake of of you guys and for the sake of everybody listening what I said the last time that this came up, which is that when you are making the decision as to whether it is better to rent or better to buy, the first thing that you want to look at is the price to rent ratio for whatever you're looking at. Price to rent ratio is quite simple. It is the home price divided by the annual rent. For example, let's say that the home price for a given home is $500,000 and. And that home rents for 3,000amonth, which is 36,000 a year. Well, 500,000 divided by 36,000 gives us a price to rent ratio of 13.8, which means that you're better off buying a place like that. But by contrast, let's take that same $500,000 home and let's assume that it rents for only 1,200amonth, which is 14,400 a year. While 500,000 divided by 14,400 equals a price to rent ratio of 34.7, in which case you are way, way better off renting same $500,000 home, but depending on how much it rents for, in one example, 3000amonth, and in the other example, 1200amonth. Depending on how much it rents for, it's either worth buying or it's not. Now, if the price to rent ratio is 15 or less, it's usually a good idea to buy. If it's 25 or more, it's definitely a good idea to rent. And if it's in that middle zones between 16 to 24, that's when it's a gray zone. And you're going to want to look at other factors like how long you plan on living there, HOA fees, maintenance fees. You want to look at a whole smorgasbord of other factors because you're in that gray zone area. So we'll start with that as the baseline. And that was what I also shared in the previous episode. And now let me go on my rant about the pervasive and erroneous myth that renting is throwing money away.
- [50:39]
Joe Saul-Sehy
I'm jumping on this train, too. Don't leave me out.
- [50:41]
Paula Pant
Ooh, Joe, come in at any time.
- [50:44]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Because I've got the stats ready. Yeah, got some stats ready.
- [50:47]
Paula Pant
So first, let's start with what you often hear in society. You hear statements like, I'm sick of throwing money away on rent. Your home is your biggest investment. Buying is always better. Right? That's absolute horse garbage.
- [51:03]
Joe Saul-Sehy
So polite.
- [51:06]
Paula Pant
And it does not take math, logic and math into account. So don't make the biggest purchase of your life based on a couple of ill informed cliches. Let's do some actual math now. There are three major arguments that defend the quote renting is throwing money away myth. Argument number one is the argument that rent is an expense, while mortgages build equity. Argument number two is that rent is forever while mortgages end. And argument number three is that renters don't benefit from rising home values, but homeowners do. And so let's go through and dismantle these arguments one by one, and we'll start with that first, which is the argument that rent is an expense while mortgages build equity. To break down that argument, the people who say that will make the argument that, you know what, if you rent 0% of your monthly payments, build equity. If you own some x percent x being greater than 0 of your monthly payments, build equity. And therefore owning is better than renting because equity is an asset, assets are good, and a non zero percentage of your monthly payment is going towards equity building. This is flawed logic because first, as you know, only a very small slice of your mortgage payment builds equity, right? Your mortgage consists of four parts, principal, interest, taxes, and insurance. This is piti, the P portion, principal, that's equity. The iti, the interest, taxes and insurance are all expenses. So the ITI portion of your mortgage payment is money that you are, quote, unquote, throwing away. You're throwing away interest, you're throwing away property tax, you're throwing away insurance. I'm using air quotes every time I say the word throwing away. During the first 15 years of your loan, the bulk of those payments are going towards the ITI rather than the P, the principal. So mortgages are amortized, which means the overwhelming majority of your initial payments are applied towards interest rather than principal. If you go to an amortization calculator, you can actually look at that calculator to see when that crossover point happens. That tipping point, which is when more money is applied to principal rather than interest, is based on your interest rate. So if you have a 6.5% interest rate, it will take you 19.4 years. Say it with me, 19.4 years before you hit that tipping point. When more money goes to principal rather than interest, that's at a 6.5% interest rate. If you have a 5.5% interest rate, it's going to take you 6, 17.5 years. If you have a 4.5% interest rate, it'S going to take you 14.7 years. Between the first 14 through 19 years of your mortgage, you are buried deep in the ITI sandbox, where the bulk of your payments are going towards the stuff that's getting quote unquote, thrown away, the interest, taxes, and insurance, rather than the principal. Now, there are people who will argue, yes, but a non zero amount is going to principle, and non zero is better than zero. Those people are overlooking opportunity cost. And we will go more into that in a moment.
- [54:17]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Well, and that opportunity cost, can I, can I do it now?
- [54:20]
Paula Pant
Oh, go for it, Joe.
- [54:22]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Well, that opportunity cost, in part also is a different math challenge, which is outside of the mortgage. And it actually also is a little bit behavioral, which is my favorite part of this discussion. And this, I think is important because of the fact that Peyton is also needs to explain this to parents, who often, believe it or not, aren't going to be as swayed by the math as they will maybe some of the more emotional arguments. And I think that behaviorally, it is easy to see that someone who owns their home is going to spend far more money on upkeep, on furnishings, on all of the other things. You're also gonna be responsible for a lot of the bills. Maybe your water is covered, maybe your waste collection is covered. Those are all going to be homeowner expenses. They're going to be added on on top of the mortgage.
- [55:14]
Paula Pant
Right.
- [55:14]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Paula, you know that Cheryl and I are adding on to the back of our house. And it is stupid. Like in terms of. In terms of an investment opportunity, it's bad, but this is my castle. But it is horrible. If my goal, which Peyton stated very clearly, is early retirement, this thing going on in the back of my house would be the dumbest thing I wanted to do. If I had Peyton's goal, dumbest thing I would want to do. And yet when you're a homeowner, you start thinking that way. You go, ooh, I could remodel this. I could do this. And none of it makes mathematical sense. It's all just, quote, quality of life. But we've talked about this in the past. When you pick up one stick, you also pick up the other. If I was worried about early retirement, like Peyton and I decided to throw a bunch of money at this project, it's going to have a consequence on where my money can go elsewhere. But back to your opportunity cost, Right?
- [56:09]
Paula Pant
Exactly. And if we look at the opportunity cost of taking that differential between the rent and the mortgage payment, right. Taking that money and putting it into the stock market. And obviously I'm not talking about selecting individual stocks. I'm talking about the total US Stock market, a broad index fund. There is a tremendous opportunity cost at not investing that that differential between the rent price and the mortgage price into the stock market. For example, starting from the best possible time that you could buy a home, which is the, the bottom of the market in the 2008, 2009 recession, let's say that you were lucky enough that you bought at the absolute bottom of the market. Well, from 2008 to 2009, let's measure through to the beginning of 2016, home prices during that eight year time span doubled. And so you might be like, wow, look at all of this equity growth. Home prices doubled. But in that same time period, the total US Stock market tripled. Tripled. So at every dollar that you put into equity in that time span into home equity was a dollar that you did not put into the US Total stock market. And there are going to be people who say, well, wait a minute, you can't compare housing to stocks because you have to live somewhere. But the reason that we make this comparison is because we're asking the question of are you better off either tying up your cash into a home or finding an alternative investment coupled with a rent payment and any cash that's tied up in home equity, including the down payment, is money that is necessarily not deployed into alternative other assets. And that opportunity cost, combined with the additional overhead of homeownership, can in many markets negate any advantage that comes from owning.
- [58:06]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Let's couple this again, Paula, right there with behavior. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average person stays in a job for 4.1 years. Now, if you are managerial or professional level employee, that goes up to 4.9 years. So the chance that if everything, the perfect storm works out and you end up with the house of your dreams and things look like they're rolling, the chance that that might all be interrupted behaviorally, Paula, by a location change. Now you're going to be back at the beginning with your next property as well.
- [58:46]
Paula Pant
Exactly. Resetting that amortization clock over and over and over. Because when I talked about how that tipping point, that crossover at which you're paying more money towards principal than you are towards interest at a 6.5% interest rate, that tipping point is 19 years into a mortgage. How many people hold their mortgage for 19 years?
- [59:05]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Few.
- [59:06]
Paula Pant
Very few. And so that is how I would address one of three arguments that justify the quote, unquote, rent is throwing your money away Myth. So argument number one is that mortgages build equity, and therefore having a mortgage is better than paying rent. That's my response to argument number one. Now, argument number two is that rent.
- [59:27]
Joe Saul-Sehy
I think there's another piece of that, that. Because I'm just thinking about arguing with parents, or not arguing, but discussing this with parents. I think what you have to tell your parents is, I am building equity, but I'm building equity elsewhere.
- [59:40]
Paula Pant
Right.
- [59:41]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Than in a piece of property. I think an old mentality is if I'm not investing this money in a primary residence in the ground, I'm wasting it.
- [59:49]
Paula Pant
Yeah, exactly.
- [59:50]
Joe Saul-Sehy
You know what I mean? And, yeah, so the key is to say, I'm not wasting this money. I'm using this money a way that I get to retire early. And I think that your parents would be super proud of that.
- [60:02]
Paula Pant
Right, Right. Yeah, exactly. We're talking specifically about the alternative of building equity in equities, building equity in the total US Stock market. We're not talking about the alternative of taking that same amount of money and putting it into video games and drugs.
- [60:18]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Which was a close second, Peyton.
- [60:21]
Paula Pant
Right. So we're talking about toggling between different asset classes. Right. Different types of assets. That's really what the conversation is about. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. Joe, you. You are still building equity. You're building equities. Right? That's. That's literally what the stock market is referred to.
- [60:40]
Joe Saul-Sehy
You want me to build one equity, I'm building tons of equities.
- [60:45]
Paula Pant
Okay, so argument number two, rent is forever while mortgages end. And the breakdown of that argument is if you rent, you will always forever make rent payments until you're 110. If you own, then you're going to pay off your mortgage within 15 to 30 years. Fewer payments are better than more payments, and therefore owning is better than renting. Right, but that is flawed logic. Number one, that reasoning presupposes that your mortgage is your only payment. And I can tell you this as somebody. I own seven rental units, free and clear. I have seven rental properties, seven units that are absolutely free and clear. There is no mortgage attached to them. And yet I pay for property taxes, which, by the way, are also unpredictable, and they keep going up. They are functionally a tax on unrealized capital gains. So, sure, in theory, you've got higher home equity on your theoretical balance sheet, but in real life, that doesn't buy eggs at the grocery store. And in the meantime, you're paying a much, much bigger property tax bill whenever home prices rise. Right. So you've got property taxes which keep going up, you've got insurance which goes up significantly. Just ask particularly anybody who lives in Florida right now how much their insurance has gone up. And then you've got maintenance, you've got repairs, you've got renovations, utility bills, municipal usage fees like water, sewer, trash, some depending on where you buy a home, you may or may not have homeowner association dues. There are any time that you want to facilitate a buy or sell transaction, there are going to be heavy transaction fees. If you think about it in the if you think of a home as a mutual fund, imagine that it's a mutual fund with a heavy front end load and back end load, right? So anytime that you want to transact on a piece of property, there are huge transaction fees, big commissions, big closing costs. And then as we already discussed, there are the opportunity costs of not deploying your money elsewhere. And so depending on where you live and depending on what home you choose, those expenses could be equal to or more than the rent on a comparable property. And again, this is why we need to avoid using these tired aphorisms like rent is throwing money away and instead actually do the math on any one given individual property. That's why I love the price to rent ratio so much, because it's a great, easy back of the envelope first pass filtering mechanism for hey, what is the value of this property? And what does this same property rent for on the open market? And by just doing a basic sixth grade arithmetic, we can quickly see, is the price to rent ratio a slam dunk Buy a slam dunk rent or in the gray zone. And the thing is, one of the cognitive biases that we as humans have when it comes to understanding our money is that we tend to emphasize cash flow above and beyond the bigger picture. So when money is leaving our bank, bank account, it hurts. But when expenses are invisible, like opportunity cost, we often tend to ignore it. And when expenses are lump sum, like replacing the roof, replacing the windows, replacing the siding and the floors and the subfloors and the garage door, right? We often convince ourselves that our monthly costs are absent of those figures. This actually relates back to the very first question that we answered in today's episode about lumpy expenses. Big lump sums versus ongoing expenses. When we have a big one time lump sum of I need to replace the roof and all of the windows on my home and that's going to cost $30,000 or $40,000, we mentally bucket it as something different than what our monthly housing expenses Are. And so to relate that to the argument of while your rent is forever, your mortgage is not. Sure, your principal and interest payments will disappear when you repay the mortgage, but forever, you will pay for major capital expenditures, maintenance, property taxes, insurance, renovations, all of the care and operations of your home. And so the question is not how do I escape making a perpetual payment. The question is rather, which of these two perpetual payments is more desirable? Would I rather pay rent in perpetuity or would I rather pay homeownership costs in perpetuity? No matter what you're making payments in perpetuity?
- [65:30]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Of course, something that I've always said, Paula, is that every strategy has an Achilles heel. That means that no matter which of these choose, you also have to accept the downside. And I think the downside that you admit with renting is let's say that, you know, we go back to Chris's question about hot markets. Let's say that you live in a town like Austin that 25 years ago was kind of a sleepy city and now is this, quote, hot city, and rent prices are through the roof. You have to accept the fact that you're, you're going to be somewhat at the whim of rental prices at that point. So it doesn't mean that one is gold and the other is completely tarnished. But clearly, I think renting, even with that Achilles heel, comes down as a, as a winner for, frankly, for a lot of people, for a ton of people.
- [66:25]
Paula Pant
Right. Well, and Texas, as you know, Joe, as a Texas resident, has some of the highest property taxes in the United States.
- [66:32]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Right. Because we have no state income tax. I mean, that's where they, quote, get you.
- [66:36]
Paula Pant
Yeah, exactly. And so then you think about people who purchased a home with the understanding that the property tax bill was going to be X and then the value of that home quickly rapidly rose. Great, you've got some equity on paper, but that doesn't actually impact your day to day life unless you're borrowing against it or selling it.
- [66:55]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Much easier to get caught up in. I can't afford the property taxes anymore. I mean, same, same thing. But as a property owner.
- [67:01]
Paula Pant
Right, exactly. Actually, that leads perfectly into argument number three that you often hear, which is renters don't benefit from rising home values, but owners do. One of the main arguments that people use to justify homeownership is that they want. It's that fomo. Right, The FOMO of missing out on rising home values. Because homeowners benefit from equity gains, renters don't. In fact, renters are Often penalized because equity gains correlate with rising rents. And so therefore owning is better than renting. Now, to debunk this or to dismantle this, let's first take a look at what is home equity? Where does home equity come from? Home equity is created in three ways. Number one, principal reduction, which we talked about at length already. Number two, forced depreciation. That means that you have intelligently made upgrades to your property that add more equity than the amount that you spent. So let's say that you spent $7,000 adding a new bathroom to your property, and the addition of that new bathroom caused the value of the property to rise by $20,000. Well, that means that you have converted $7,000 of cash into a net additional $13,000 of home equity. That is the concept of forced depreciation. And then number three are market gains, market based equity gains, which comes from growth in the overall housing market. So the three ways that you gain equity, principal reduction, forced appreciation, and market appreciation. We've already talked about principal reduction and how long it takes for that crossover point to hit forced appreciation. You've got to know what you're doing. You've got to be good, right? You have to, because it's so easy, as every homeowner knows, for renovations and capex to have cost overruns, that you need to be skilled at being able to manage that forced appreciation well. And you also have to be very strategic about the property that you select in order to buy a property that has forced appreciation potential. To create forced appreciation, you've done a deep profit and loss analysis. This is when we get into sophisticated investor strategy. And this is when we're really deviating from the mindset that most retail home buyers hold. Because retail home buyers might say something like, oh, I love these maple cabinets, or let's wallpaper the accent wall in the living room. Retail home buyers are making renovation decisions based on their personal tastes. And that is not a forced appreciation strategy. It's great as a form of personal consumption, but personal consumption should not be conflated with forced appreciation as an investment. So in terms of building equity, you know, principal reduction takes a very, very long time. Forced appreciation is something that requires an enormous amount of skill and a different mindset than most retail home buyers have. Not saying that you can't do it, it's just that is a skill set that you need to develop in order to do it. Just like any other skill set, it's something that you need to study and work at. And then the third form of Equity growth comes from market based equity gains. And that's typically what people really latch onto when they hold onto this. Renting is throwing your money away myth. Because who doesn't love something for nothing? And if you get to enjoy the personal consumption of living in a primary residence, and in the midst of all of this personal consumption, this lovely personal consumption, you also get something for nothing, well, wow, that just feels like magic. But the reality is market based equity gains are outside of your control. There's nothing that you can do to affect this. Sure, you can purchase a home in a neighborhood that shows signs of appreciation, meaning you've looked at the number of new construction permits and the number of renovation permits and you're seeing substantial year over year growth. You're looking at new job creation. Those are all very good signs of a neighborhood that's appreciating. But even if you do everything right, what we know is that historically home prices over the long run have risen at a nationwide average of around 5%, which means that home price growth has dramatically underperformed the S&P 500. Which again goes back to the opportunity cost argument. Because for every dollar that you have tied up in home equity that is appreciating at a long term annualized 5% rate, that's a dollar that is not in a total stock market index fund, appreciating at a long term annualized 9% rate. And that long term annualized 5%, that's the best case scenario, well, I should say the best reasonable case. Every now and again you get a year like 2020 where you have a 17% bump, but you cannot reasonably go into a home purchase expecting that we will have a repeat of 2020. And so when you look at the three methods of equity growth, which is principal reduction, forced appreciation, and market gains, well, principal reduction carries opportunity cost. Forced appreciation requires skill, which if you want to do that, I encourage you to develop that skill. But then now you have a side hustle and now you're buying that property as an investor and not as a retail home buyer. Right. So forced appreciation requires skill. And then market gains are outside of your control and also carry the opportunity cost of not otherwise investing that into a more lucrative asset because you're tying up cash in that down payment, you're tying up cash in the renovations and the repairs and the maintenance, and you are potentially paying higher monthly costs than what renters are paying, particularly when you take utilities, repairs, maintenance, capex into consideration. By contrast, renters enjoy greater flexibility, lower overhead, and the opportunity to pursue higher returns elsewhere. That's why when it comes to the question of rent versus buy for your primary residence, you want to start with the price to rent ratio. And if you're in a gray zone, then you want to evaluate how long you're going to live there. What are your alternative investment options? What are your assumptions about inflation and investment gains? What are your estimated maintenance, repair, insurance, property tax and capex costs? What assumptions do you have about the rate at which rents are going to rise? If you're in the gray zone, there are a lot of factors to take into account. And recall, the gray zone is a price to rent ratio that's somewhere between 16 to 24. But a litmus test of where am I in the price to rent ratio is far, far better than buying in to the overblown aphorism that, quote, renting is throwing money away, which is not only wrong, it is downright dangerous. Because that's the kind of thinking that leads people who live in areas where the average price to rent ratio is 45 or 50 to still think that it's worth buying. The people who are best suited to buy in a location where the price to rent ratio is 45 or 50 or 55 are people who are carrying enormous sums of foreign currency and want to park their money into the US dollar into a tangible asset that's denominated in US dollars. If that's the case, right, if you live in Argentina and you're worried about hyperinflation and you want to park your money into a US dollar denominated tangible asset so as to offset your inflation risk, then absolutely, you can blindfold yourself in eeny, meeny, miny, moe and buy any property you want. Because in that case you're just looking for an inflation hedge. But if you are a US resident who's just trying to live, then it does not make sense to buy in an area where the price to rent ratio is super, super high. And it definitely does make sense to buy in an area where the PR ratio is very low. I'm recording right now, I'm recording this episode from Cleveland, Ohio. The citywide median price to rent ratio here is 11. So if you live in Cleveland, buy. And if you live in Manhattan, rent. And the next time that someone tells you that renting is, quote unquote throwing money away, ask them if that means that toothpaste or socks or any other item that you buy for the sake of personal consumption is also throwing money away. Because if I should avoid renting, then by that same line of logic. I should also avoid toothpaste because both are items that I purchase for the sake of personal consumption. And that is my rant about the myth that renting is throwing money away. Joe, we did it.
- [76:16]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Oh, that was fantastic. Love talking about Texas dispelling old myths about renting versus buying. So fun. And implementing Plan Becky.
- [76:27]
Paula Pant
Plan Becky. I like the name of that. Joe, where can people find you if they'd like to hear more?
- [76:32]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, visit the Greatest Money show on Earth. Because as you know, Paula, it is a circus. Which also on Fridays features the Paula the Stacking Benjamin Show. So come join us Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays over there.
- [76:46]
Paula Pant
Awesome, Joe. Thank you for joining us. And thanks to all of you for being part of the Afford Anything community. If you want to follow us, go to afford anything.com newsletter or chat with other people@affordanything.com community. Thanks again for tuning in. I'm Paula Pant.
- [77:02]
Joe Saul-Sehy
I'm Jos Alcihi and we'll meet you.
- [77:04]
Paula Pant
In the next episode.