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Love to hear that. You are “living.”
How far will $1 Million go in retirement in your state?
- Thread starter gfh77665
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You and I think alike.
Lenders are not stupid, they want to make sure who they lend to for the duration will have enough income to pay for the term of the loan, or they will be in a good enough financial situation to move elsewhere instead of just squat there and wait for foreclosure.
I can answer this question for your coworker's brother:My coworker showed me his brothers house in CA on Zillow, 3.4 mil and it was a 1950’s 1500 sq ft ranch. Why not move to Boston you can get a 2800 sq ft home for that
Besides impressing people in conversation it’s not impressive in reality, still a below average way of life
1) You can still sell that 3.4M house later, you are not obligated to live in it forever and never cash out. So the marginal cost of living here a bit longer to make the higher salary is likely a better deal.
2) Prop 13, the tax is on purchase price + fixed increase percentage per year. You will likely find people with their 30 year old property tax being only 1/3 of what a new purchase home tax at.
3) Real estate is not an expense you can never get back. If the home is in a desirable location its value is likely not going to drop over time like a car. The building sure depreciate but most of the value in the 3.4M house is likely land, that is a 600k building on a 2.8M land. I guess that 3.4M house is in the bay area. It is called the bay area because it is surrounded by either mountains or oceans, so the land is not unlimited. If this happens in Dallas the developers will just keep building north further and further to increase supply and prevent home from appreciating. This unlimited land solution does not work here. So I guess, you can say the land's investment value should be compare to gold and see if it is worth keeping, not 3.4M divide by 30 years to see how much your home cost. You can always sell and move out after retirement, or you can wait.
I paid off my mortgage, should have kept that 2.5% instead.
Overall I live the same, but now I am more aggressive in investment and take more high risk high return approach because I no longer need to worry about having a monthly payment.
I also file standard deduction instead of itemized deduction, and eliminate a lot of things that cost me real cash instead of "hey it is tax deductible", no they are no longer tax deductible if I am filing standard deduction.
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I see I didn’t include the fact that he’s 68 and retired. Probably loves the area. Plus that’s what Zillow said for all we know it’s wrong. Just illustrating it’s a below average way of life other than an above avg per sq ft price. People do feel good about that as well
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Really quite fascinating to look at paying a debt in full as a coulda shoulda woulda as if it were a wrong move. As long as you had your own reason for doing so that’s good enough
I own it today, but I sold all my Amazon in 2001. It wasn’t the right decision looking back, but it had tripled already in 3 years and I was young, and afraid I’d lose the gains and even the principle
Me too I have nothing to deduct other than my wife’s school teacher unreimbursed expenses.
We can only hope that we keep learning as we age and make decent decisions. They’re not going to be perfect all the time. I just got ripped off where I opened a new bread amex and never got the $200 for opening and they said nothing they can do. A younger me would go to the mattresses. But I google and others also never got it. So it’s not worth my time.
Hindsight is 20/20. Back in 2015 or was it 17, nobody could predict this huge stock boom. I could have double down.
I bought about a few hundred dollars worth of nVidia stock back in 2009 and forgot about it, why didn't I buy more?
I sold all my AMD stock when crypto mining boom were over but before the AI boom started, why oh why did I not just keep and forget about it like the nVidia stock?
You just can't go back and what if, I could have, etc. Of all the things I did paying off my mortgage was the lowest on ROI.
I live in Michigan and I find this hard to believe. There are way too many factors involved.
I have zero savings but thankfully have a pension worth almost 40,000 a year plus my SS and my wife's SS disability . My house should be paid off in a couple years and that will reduce my mortgage payment by over two thirds once I only have to pay property taxes.
I also have to pay for half my healthcare which is over 1,000 a month. In about a year I can get on Medicare and get the wife and I on a Supplement plan that can save us about 50% on premiums and still have their top of the line plan
When this happens the part time work I currently do won't be necessary.
I have zero savings but thankfully have a pension worth almost 40,000 a year plus my SS and my wife's SS disability . My house should be paid off in a couple years and that will reduce my mortgage payment by over two thirds once I only have to pay property taxes.
I also have to pay for half my healthcare which is over 1,000 a month. In about a year I can get on Medicare and get the wife and I on a Supplement plan that can save us about 50% on premiums and still have their top of the line plan
When this happens the part time work I currently do won't be necessary.
Curious... What do you mean by the highlighted phrase? If he's owned the property for some time, he's sitting on a gold mine, right?
By the way, my real estate purchases, while tough at the time, have paid off handsomely. If my securities go south, I have a really nice place to live in a great location for Uber low cost. That's piece of mind.
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What I meant is if we look at the median amenities. For example there are plenty of 1.5 mil homes in Mass with detached garages and window AC. For 2025, that’s below average as I’d say 1600 sq ft. As far as equity it’s far above the median…
I can look out my window and oddly a 1925 Dutch colonial Sold for $940k. I consider these homes below average in 2025 lifestyle (ours too)….
Got it; thanks.
I guess I would only suggest that the reason home prices are expensive here is, there is a lot of $$ here. I think people may fail to understand the opportunity here is off the freakin' charts. I call that a great way of life. I know of no other place where you can make as many mistakes as I have and still come out OK. I owe so much to Silicon Valley and the state of California. I bet your uncle feels the same way.
All good.
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It is a great feeling….opportunity, that we were given it.
When my entire dept was phased out in 2015, an exec who herself was let go later, looked out for me and genuinely said where can he fit, what would make sense…and I kept my salary. I do owe something for that, and I’ve been a loyal employee…
Basically my plan. I plan for the worst and wait and see. So far it's worked. Got about $600k in equity in our house and a relatively low monthly payment. Unfortunately we will have to buy a new commuter car for the wife soon.
Agree; loyalty should be a 2 way street. You must be doing something right!
$600K? Well done! Another success story. One more car means 1 more oil change to do; what's not to like? All good...
Real estate is a bit more speculative than things like CDs, bonds, index funds, etc. Sometimes you got lucky, sometimes you got burnt. Most mature investors (my parents were RE agents decades ago) would tell you to only buy what you can afford and not buy something you are speculating on, it could go real bad real fast in a way you cannot control.
Buying a place you can afford to live and raise a family is a tradeoff between stability and uncertainty. I do think owning your own home is a good way to provide stability so your family knows where you will be for a while, and can start doing things you wanted to a certain extend (gardening, etc). It does cost more than renting, and it is a quality of life improvement. There's also some neighborhoods with very few rental listing and if you want your kids to go to school there, you don't have too many choices but to buy.
Key Takeaways
In three states—Massachusetts (19 years), California (16 years), and Hawaii (12 years)—$1 million would be completely spent in less than 20 years.By contrast, in five states—Oklahoma (71 years), Louisiana (76 years), Arkansas (76 years), Mississippi (87 years), and West Virginia (88 years)—the same amount could last over 70 years.
In these states, a person would need less than $1,200 per month (after Social Security) to cover expenses.
Warshington 20 minutes
