So why is it considered a catastrophe when housing prices drop?

Last week, I asked you to identify the cultural assumption in this screenshot. Here’s what I was thinking of:

Isn’t it funny how “home prices falling” is assumed to be a bad thing?

You never know how American your assumptions are until you go to another country. That’s because in the United States, we have been systematically taught that housing is a good investment and that prices must go up. Ask your parents why they bought their house. One of the top 3 reasons will almost certainly be, “It was a good investment.” Yet I’ve shown very clearly that for many people in many situations, it is not. In fact, housing is often a terrible investment.

Yet the illusion persists, whether it’s my friend wanting to buy a million-dollar house with no research, or people saying things like, “I wish I’d bought more real estate” after incurring a paltry 1.2% return rate over several decades.

As a result, you get media reports that implicitly echo the cultural assumption that housing is a good investment. The way they describe the housing market — oops, “housing recovery” — influences and reflects our cultural assumption. Let’s take a look at a headline from a major national news publication:

Interesting…it’s a “housing recovery” when prices are getting expensive. Would you say that with toothpaste?

Also interesting: Why is it a painful decline when young people and other first-time buyers get more affordable housing?

Alice in Real Estate

What if we discard the assumption? Let’s try: For each of these screenshots from major media sources, I’m including the opposite cultural assumption below it.

As Warren Buffett said in his 1997 Chairman’s Letter to Shareholders,

“If you expect to be a net saver during the next 5 years, should you hope for a higher or lower stock market during that period?

Many investors get this one wrong. Even though they are going to be net buyers of stocks for many years to come, they are elated when stock prices rise and depressed when they fall.

This reaction makes no sense. Only those who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing stocks rise. Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices.”

Why “higher house prices = good” persists

Deep-seated beliefs like this exist for multiple reasons. What might some of them be?

1. American culture believes that home ownership is a right that everyone should have (it’s not).
2. Since most newspapers are written by and read by older people — whose wealth is predominantly (and mistakenly) tied up in their houses, it only makes sense that real estate prices “should” increase. As a result, you see words like “recovery” and “crash” rather than “bargain.”
3. Unlike toothpaste or other commodities, there are ancillary effects of changes in real-estate prices. If one house price declines in a neighborhood, there are spillover effects that affect nearby houses. This is why neighbors and realtors will do anything to prevent a house from being sold at a low price, including throwing in things like cars and TVs instead of lowering the list price.
4. Crooked organizations like the National Association of Realtors and banks use every trick in the book to prevent house prices from actively reflecting the market price. Remember how, in Chapter 6 of my book, I described example after example of how Wall Street firms use disingenuous tricks like survivorship bias to obscure how poorly performing most of their funds are? The same is true of real estate. Where there’s lots of money in commissions, there is virtually always shady behavior, obscured facts, and whispered promises that never turn out to be true.

In fact, this cultural expectation goes to the very highest levels of the U.S. government. In a speech, President Obama said:

“This plan will not save every home, but it will give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild,” Mr. Obama told a crowd here, in one of the communities hardest hit by the housing crisis. “It will prevent the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy. And by bringing down the foreclosure rate, it will help to shore up housing prices for everyone.”

It’s fascinating, but unsurprising, to hear the President’s explicit goal is to “shore up housing prices for everyone” — and, you could argue, maintain unaffordably high rates for most young people.

It’s not that simple

For young people, every time the market goes down, you should be cheering for your own individual finances. You can acquire investments at lower prices and you have a long time for the market to grow.

Yet, paradoxically, lower housing prices do represent a clear risk to the American financial system, whose growth is predicated on consumer spending, which is in turn strongly influenced by housing prices. That’s why this crisis is so serious and confusing. (See the President’s full remarks here.)

Just because virtually every media presentation decries the “rapid decline” in housing values doesn’t mean that applies to you. “Higher house prices = good” is a cultural assumption.

You can read more on my page about real estate investing.

What other money assumptions are there?

I’ll start:

• People who have money waste their money (also known as “It’s OK when I spend my money on something for fun, but not you” — see comments)
• Immigrants are better at money than you are
• People who spend $20,000+ on their weddings are dumb (same as above — see comments)

What money assumptions have you noticed?

So when a Wharton professor wrote a Washington Post column pointing out common myths of homeownership, I laughed at some of the comments.

• “Wow is this a poorly written and intentionally misleading piece of b.s. I wasted countless thousands renting apartments before wising up and buying a house. The author would rather have us all in housing collectives or government owned communes. Home ownership is still the American dream; don’t let this joker fool you.”
• “…Housing is a great long-term investment. Yes, it is. Because what the author doesn’t mention is that you have to have a place to live. If you rent, you have a place to live but the return on your ‘investment’ when you pay rent is 0.”
• “this guy gets paid for this s^^t?”

Newspaper sites have the worst commenters in the world.

But there was a comment that made my jaw drop. Can anyone spot the multiple problems with this comment?

“Another story: My father bought our family house in NJ for about $27k in 1964; sold it for $350k in 2000. Home ownership is terrific long-term investment.”

(Need a hint? This and this will help.)

Any time you make a major purchase, there is a huge amount of money to optimize. And buying a house is the best example of this.

Even though buying a house is usually not a good investment, once you have a mortgage, you can optimize the hell out of it.

Today, Andy Jolls from videocreditscore.com is going to show you one way to save $71,000+ on your mortgage.

Dominate Your 30 Year Mortgage in 25 Years

01:16 — Typical Mortgage Payments
01:36 — Extra Payments
02:07 — $71,000 Savings
02:23 — What if your credit is worse?
03:29 — Scrooge Strategy members can learn more

Today let’s see some real world examples of how you can save money on your biggest-ticket item: housing.

Instead of paying off your mortgage once per month, set up a system to pay it twice per month. I’m not telling you to double your payments. I’m saying that paying every two weeks WILL mean several years less of payments.

Here’s how it works with Bank of America [Countrywide] and I’ll assuming it works this way with others. BofA has a plan (PayPlan/26) which means instead of making 12 payments a year you are paying 26 payments a year. Note the math. It seems like you should be paying 24 payments a year, but that’s not how the calendar works, so you make extra payments. But, that’s a good thing. It’s like you are making 13 payments a year [the way BofA does it, more on this below*] Let’s take a look.

Scenario 1: Typical Mortgage

APR: 6%, $300K, 12 monthly payments of $1798.65, total interest paid over 30 years, $347,514.57

Scenario 2: Making an extra payment each year

APR: 6%, $300K,? 26 bi-weekly payments of $899.38, total interest paid over 25 years, $276,591

You just saved almost $71,000 in interest payments. Wow, that’s like 18,000 lattes or one every day for the next 50 years.

What’s happens if you have bad credit and have higher interest rates than 6%. Moving to every two weeks helps even more. At a 7% interest rate, you will shorten your loan by 6 years instead of 5 years for the 6% rate. Better yet, you save from paying $98,545 in interest.

Scenario 3: Making extra payments each month

Okay, this doesn’t save you a lot more, but you stop payments 5 months sooner and your interest payout is $273,852 for an extra savings of $2739.

The problem with the scenarios above is unless they are automated, most of us will never do it. That’s why the BofA PayPlan/26 plan is great. It’s automatic.

Here’s what sucks about the plan. One, they charge a $4 fee every month. Okay that’s $2600 over the course of the loan. But, the bigger issue is this. They don’t apply your mid month payment right way, rather, they hold your money like a bank and then make a payment with your two payments at the end of the month. Thus, the plan really is a 13 payment plan. This is pretty downright snaky in my book and I think [hope] the regulators jump on this. According the scenarios above I should be saving another $2739, but I’m not.

I’ve seen many posts that complain about the fact that the banks charge for this service in many different ways. I agree with these complaints, but I want to point out that I disagree with the advice most posters give. They say, get a bunch of envelopes and be disciplined about this. I just don’t think “discipline” is realistic for most busy people. (Note from Ramit: See Personal finance is not about more willpower.) Sure, I’m bummed about paying $2600 for something I should be able to remember to do, but that $2600 is saving me $71,000. So, it’s a tradeoff I willingly accept.

But all this said, the upside totally outweighs the downside. It’s an automatic way to save you more money than you could save almost anywhere else and you’ll be paid off 5 years earlier.

###
Andy is an ex-FICO executive and Chief Educator at VideoCreditScore.com. Check out these videos:

• Do apartment evictions impact your credit score?
• Avoid Cell Phone Scams
• Student loan debt vs. credit card debt
• How to translate your credit score into an interest rate.

See the specifics: If you liked this, Andy recorded a more in-depth premium video for Scrooge Strategy members, which shows specific tactics, phone numbers, and an additional tip for saving $117,600 on the lifetime of a typical mortgage. Sample screenshot:

My Scrooge Strategy members get proven, specific tips like this every week — and if the tips aren’t useful for you, you get 100% of your money back. See how to focus on the big wins and save thousands — no risk.

A few weeks ago, I offered you the opportunity to ask David Bergstein, professional tax analyst and CPA, your tax questions and a chance to get a free account at CCH CompleteTax.

Some of this is pretty technical, but I wanted to get your advanced questions answered, so here are David’s answers.

“IWTYBR readers posted some excellent questions. One of the main categories appears to be related to homes. So, I’d like to tackle that area. Before I do, let me just caution you that these are general comments not specific tax advice. For tax advice about your specific situation, you should seek the one-on-one guidance of a CPA.

Advanced tax breaks for home owners

Home ownership is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is you have a place to live and hopefully, over time, you will build equity. As I read the questions, there seems to be a lot of interest in what happens when you sell your home. So I will give Ryan, ZT, Chris, Steve and everyone else information to start with that can be followed up with a visit to a CPA or a site such as www.completetax.com where you can access the free Tax Guide for additional detail and examples that will help you.

Starting with the basics: Generally, a taxpayer may exclude from gross income up to $250,000 (or $500,000 for qualified spouses filing jointly) of gain on the sale or exchange of a principal residence. The taxpayer must have owned and used the home as a principal residence for an aggregate of at least two of the five previous years. The exclusion applies to only one sale or exchange every two years. In the simplest of terms, an exchange is basically a swap of properties.

Ownership and Use Test. The required two years of ownership and use need not be continuous. The test is met if the taxpayer owned and used the property as a principal residence for a total of 730 days (365 x 2) during the five-year period before the sale. The ownership and use test may be met at different times (i.e., ownership of previously rented home), provided that both tests are met during the five-year period before the date of sale. Short temporary absences for vacations or seasonal absences are counted as periods of use, even if the taxpayer rents out the property during those periods.

The home that is sold does not have to be the principal residence at the time of the purchase or sale. For example, taxpayers could move into their vacation home, convert it into their new principal residence and have up to three more years to sell their old principal residence to take advantage of the exclusion. The residence also doesn’t have to be a traditional house. It can be a condominium, houseboat, house trailer or stock held by a tenant-shareholder in a cooperative housing corporation.

Amount of Excludable Gain. The entire gain on the sale of a principal residence may be excluded up to $500,000 for married individuals filing jointly if:

(1) either spouse meets the ownership test,

(2) both spouses meet the use test, and

(3) neither spouse is eligible for exclusion by virtue of a sale or exchange of a residence within the last two years.

If the spouses do not meet all three requirements, the exclusion is determined on an individual basis and equals the sum of the exclusion limitations to which each spouse would have been entitled had they not been married.

With this basic background, let’s look at a few of the questions readers asked.

Ryan wanted to know if he qualified for a prorated exclusion. The exclusion is prorated if a taxpayer does not meet the two-year ownership and use requirements in the case of a sale or exchange due to a change in place of employment, health or unforeseen circumstances. In such cases, the amount of the available exclusion is equal to the amount of the applicable exclusion ($250,000 or $500,000) multiplied by the ratio of:

(1) the shorter of

(a) the aggregate periods during which the ownership and use requirements were met during the five-year period ending on the date of sale; or

(b) the period after the date of the most recent sale or exchange to which the exclusion applied, over.

(2) two years.

The five-year period may be suspended during any period that the taxpayer is a member of the uniformed services or Foreign Service on official extended duty. A sale will be considered as occurring primarily because of unforeseen circumstances if any of the following events occur during the taxpayer’s period of ownership and use of a residence:

(1) death;

(2) divorce or separation;

(3) becoming eligible for unemployment compensation;

(4) a change in employment that leaves the taxpayer unable to pay the mortgage or reasonable basic living expenses;

(5) multiple births resulting from the same pregnancy;

(6) damage to the residence resulting from a natural or man-made disaster, or act of war or terrorism; or

(7) condemnation, seizure, or other involuntary conversion of the property.

From Ryan’s post, it appears he sold his home to study abroad. That is not one of the IRS-defined reasons for allowing a prorated exclusion. However, if additional circumstances (as outlined above) apply to his situation, he may be able to take a prorated exclusion.

Steve questioned whether he had to pay taxes on the sale of his home in one year even though he then used that money to purchase a new home the following year. Generally speaking, your tax obligation related to the sale of your home has nothing to do with whether or not you purchase a new home with the proceeds. The tax obligation on the home you sold is related to whether or not the profit you realized exceeded the $250,000/$500,000 exclusion. If not, then no capital gains are owed on the proceeds; if gains were more than this, then taxes are owed on that amount.

ZT also had a question on selling a home. Several costs related to closing are deductible. These include the interest and real estate taxes that are allocated to the seller; and for the buyer, the points, interest, real estate taxes and costs for private mortgage insurance. When you sell a house you add the expenses of fixing it up to the basis to reduce you gain. Sales commissions reduce your amount realized and thus your gain also.

Chris wonders if he should be able to take some of the home-related deductions for a home jointly owned with someone else. Generally speaking, you are entitled to deduct interest and taxes on residential property that you own as either your primary or secondary home. If this is the case and the home is jointly owned with one person having taken all the deductions, then both parties would need to file amended returns for the specific tax years if they now decide that the deductions should have been shared. Rules are different if the property is investment property, if it’s rented out, etc. In instances like this, where there are multiple parties and extenuating circumstances, consulting a tax professional is strongly advised.

Darkling, Kode and Elizabeth all have questions related to the first-time homebuyer tax breaks. I wrote about these in my previous column.

Let’s start with Kode’s question about the timing of taking the first-time homebuyer credit. If you purchased a home in 2009 and already filed your 2008 tax return without taking the credit, you can file an amended return to claim the credit on your 2008 tax return. But you do have to have purchased the home before July 1, 2009, to take the credit on your 2008 return. You do use the form F5405. There is confusion because the initial F5405 for 2008 only included the $7,500 credit, which also was to apply to homes purchased in 2009. Earlier this year, however, legislation changed the rules for first-time homebuyers who purchased their home in 2009, increasing the credit to $8,000. This required the IRS to create a new F5405 for 2008. So, another group of people that may want to file an amended return are those that purchased a home in 2009 and are eligible for the $8,000 credit but used the old F5405, taking only the $7,500 credit. The IRS may issue specific instructions here on whether they will automatically do this but there is nothing at this point in time

Darkling bought a home in 2008 and asked whether he could take the more generous $8,000 tax break for 2009 or was stuck with the $7,500 tax credit offered to first-time homebuyer in 2008 that needs to be paid back. Timing is everything. As of this point, the new rules for 2009 are not retroactive. So, if you purchased your first home in October 2008, then the $7,500 credit that must be repaid applies, assuming you meet the other criteria for this credit.

Finally, Elizabeth asked whether there are downsides to taking the first-time homebuyer credit on the 2008 tax return if you bought the home in March 2009. If you take the credit on your 2008 tax return, you will lower your tax bill immediately, and you will still be able to take the home-related deductions in 2009.

These were all great questions. The above should provide you a general starting point at the least. As always it’s a good idea to follow up with a CPA if you have complicated tax issues or use a site like www.completetax.com to help you with preparing your taxes.

About the Author: David Bergstein, CPA, is a tax analyst for CCH CompleteTax.

Winners: As promised, we’ve chosen the 10 best questions we received and are giving them each a free accout with CCH CompleteTax. The 10 winners are:

Uriel, Laura, Chris, Henry, Karen, Andrew, Deb, Candice, Satya, Amanda

Congratulations to our winners! We will be contacting you within 24 hours with your free codes.

Things will get a lot harder before they get better.
All the predictions about the recovery taking until “at least the end of the year” are horseshit. In truth, nobody knows, but it would be political suicide to admit that a recovery — whatever that means — will take a few more years. The truth is, nobody knows how long it will take. But if there’s one thing Americans love, it’s a leader pretending to know everything. And if there’s another, it’s that Americans love a quick fix…only to later complain about it not being done right.

Your questions about how “quickly” we can get out of this crisis are misguided.
Sometimes a forest needs to be cleaned out with fire before it can grow again. Again, an unpopular position. Since the government has virtually unlimited resources, it can certainly alleviate the pocketbook pain we’re feeling…but it will come back to bite us in the ass later.

Not all homeowners deserve to stay in their houses.
Renting is a perfectly reasonable alternative, but the idea of Americans “losing their houses” is politically untenable. Why? Because America perpetuates a mistaken culture of homeownership. Owning your own home is the kind of BS sacred cow that got us into this mess: Our parents tell us to buy a house. Our friends are impressed if we own a house in our twenties. The government literally encourages us to own a house by offering tax deductions. Homeownership is the American Dream!

The truth is, if you’re making the largest purchase of your life, you need more than a slogan — you need to take the responsibility to do some research. (And note that you can’t advocate for increased homeownership and also argue for Americans to keep their houses. By not reducing the prices, younger people cannot buy houses at these inflated prices.)

Yes, there was an exceptional amount of predatory lending.
For every blogger who argues loudly about personal responsibility, an angel dies and an Ogilvy executive lights a marshmallow in hell and eats a delicious snack. Wall Street and realtors are also to blame for this. But so are average Americans. It’s difficult to have a nuanced discussion about real estate on the campaign trail, so we resort to cartoonishly simplistic caricatures of things like Wall Street’s corruption. True — but also take a look in the mirror.

Homeowners are delusional about how much their houses are actually worth (see this, too).
As a wise commenter said, “I love the fact that it’s “acceptable/normal” for a home to increase its value by 100% during a five-year time frame, but it’s “unreasonable/impossible” for a home to decrease it’s value by 30-40% during a similar time frame.”

Taxes: Pandering to ordinary Americans instead of telling them to stop spending on stupid stuff
The reason Obama and McCain spent so much time talking about taxes is that most Americans are historically horrible at managing their spending. Since they make a fixed amount of money (revenue) and can control only one thing (costs), both politicans use tax breaks to pander to voters. Most people have never seriously thought about how to make more money. Fine. But what’s even more outrageous is Obama and McCain’s complete lack of honesty about what people really need to do to weather the economic crisis. Did you hear either one plainly say, “You’re going to need to buckle down and save more?” Of course not. You might as well walk into a Dave Ramsey seminar and argue that credit cards are a useful tool. It’s a suicidal suggestion. But it’s true.

Shut up about your money worries unless you’ve taken the time to read a book about how money really works
You need to read a couple of good books about money. Not read the screaming headlines of CNN.com. But a real book that explains how money works. If you don’t, do you really have the right to complain about how scared and nervous and worried you are about your money? (Note: If you want to get my favorite book recommendations, sign up for my free newsletter by Friday, 10/10/08. In fact, I’m giving away free personal-finance books in the upcoming weeks.)

Americans don’t know how to be frugal — yet
Things will get more expensive. Taxes will eventually go up. They have to. Costs of ordinary goods will go up. They always do. If you’re expecting it to get easier, you’re wrong. The key is to make more money and cut your costs. Sadly, Americans are poorly versed in being frugal. You think it makes sense to buy a new car every few years? You think it’s normal to eat out 5 times per week (lunch and dinner)? You feel good about yourself for ordering water when you go to a restaurant, but you blew $50,000 because you didn’t take the time to understand your mortgage? You’re not frugal. But a few more years of an economy like this and things just might change.

Sensible investors don’t change strategies very much — even in a market like today’s
With the market cratering hundreds of points every day — then climbing a similar amount the very next day — billions have been pulled out of the market. Yet long-term investors have the discipline to stay steady. Panicked spouses and overconfident investors think they know better by trying to time the market, but they’re wrong. In fact, here’s an excerpt from my upcoming book:

Recently, a group called Dimensional Funds studied the performance of the S&P 500 from January 1970 to December 2006, during which time the annualized return of the market was 11.1%. They also noted something amazing: Of those 36 years from 1970 to 1986, if you missed the 25 days when the stock market performed the best, your return would have dropped from 11.1% to 7.6%, a crippling difference.

Now, if only we could know the best investing days ahead of time.

Of course, we can’t. That’s why I continue to dollar-cost-average money into the market, slowly. Will it go down in the short-term? Almost certainly. But as my funds get cheaper and cheaper, I’ll pick up more and more shares. And eventually — over a 10, 20, or even 50-year time horizon, I’ll make a significant amount.

But encouraging people to continue investing during times like this wouldn’t be received well. More often than not, politicians need to seem to be doing something — ANYTHING!! — in order to keep you happy. Frankly, with a balanced portfolio, there’s really not much to change. But that’s not sexy enough to tell most people. (Plus, they have no idea what a balanced portfolio is.)

Sorry if I was too harsh. I’m usually not political, but I’m tired of the bullshit around our money. Every single one of us knows co-workers, family, or friends who are worried about their money. It’s time to get honest about what’s going on. (Want to read more? Check out my popular articles, personal-finance links, and my forum.)

More to come in future posts.

I’m trying something new: If you liked this, please digg this article.

1. Invest (Consumer Reports)
2. Run the numbers (Get Rich Slowly)

The key thing here is to actually do an analysis, as opposed to throwing around hand-wavy arguments like “Renting is throwing your money down the toilet” and “Leverage always makes you money.” If you make a financial decision that will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars without doing real math on a spreadsheet, then you are a moron. In fact, it should be so hard that you have to get help from other people.

Note: I also keep a list of real-estate bookmarks here.

One of my friends is 28 and she’s looking to buy a house in San Francisco pretty soon. Now, as you know, I’m not a big fan of real estate for investment reasons, but because I’m not an expert, I’ve been researching it more and more (see my links here). So when she mentioned wanting to buy a house, I asked one question: “Why?”

This is where things fell apart.

Her responses included things like:

“I don’t want to waste money paying rent.” I’m convinced this awful phrase was invented by Realtors BECAUSE IT’S SIMPLY NOT TRUE FOR EVERYONE. YOU ARE NOT WASTING RENT IF YOU LIVE IN AN EXPENSIVE AREA. Here’s a good article with more details.

I asked what she thought about the real-estate market right now, considering many of the ARM resets are still coming. One response: “The market is already bad, so there’s upside potential when I sell? what do you think of that logic? Prices are supposedly lower right now as a result.” I don’t think logic is enough to justify the biggest purchase of your life.

I also pasted a couple of the best articles on real estate: This one (Yahoo Finance) and this one (New York Times).

The result was interesting. She hadn’t seen these, so she asked me what I would do with my money. At this point, I was at a coffee shop and one of them lived near me, so she came over to talk about this in-person. I looked over her finances and realized she had tens of thousands of dollars just sitting around, earning hardly any interest. Even putting it in an ING savings account would have gotten her hundreds of dollars a month (open an ING savings account in 10 minutes).

The first thing I did was suggest three books to her on investing (more books I recommend). We talked for a while, and I suggested some things she could do to improve her finances and start earning more. After about 20 minutes of back-and-forth, I asked her what she was going to do for her next steps. “I’m going to be honest,” she said. “I’m not going to read those books.”

I thought this was really fascinating. Here’s someone who has tens of thousands of dollars earning 0.5% interest and she’s so resistant to the idea of reading investment books that she almost bought a million-dollar house instead. Five years ago, she had a significant amount of money. What if she had invested it in the stock market?

And five years from now, wouldn’t she be happy that she spent 5-10 hours reading a few books to get her finances in order?

Why young people still think of real-estate as an investment
One of the best things to happen from the real-estate bust that we’re undergoing is to make people think twice about real estate as an investment. That’s right — to actually consciously think about why they’re making the biggest purchase of their lives, rather than just buying a house because “it’s the next thing to do.”

And yet, I’m still stunned when I hear about my friends “investing” in real estate, especially in the Bay Area. (Yes, real estate can be profitable and great, but in some areas of the country there are far better investments).

I thought about it over the weekend, and I think there are a few reasons why real estate still seems to appealing to my friends:

1. They have some money lying around and know they should be doing something
2. They don’t know anything about investing, and the barriers to knowledge seem high
3. Real estate represents something tangible — and something their parents probably keep reminding them about
4. Society still explicitly and implicitly rewards homeowners (just think about a young friend who owns a home — are others impressed?)
5. THEY HAVE BEEN IGNORING EVERYTHING IN THE NEWS EVERY DAY FOR THE LAST 1 YEAR ABOUT REAL ESTATE (???)
6. It’s easier to do new things than to look back at old things, like reading books or handpicked articles about real-estate (Seriously, how many people will click and read through those links?)

Research for gargantuan purchases = good
Here’s the point: Buying a house is the biggest purchase you’ll ever make. When you do it, you need to understand exactly why. That means an extensive amount of research. When I bought a car, for example, I spent months learning about every trick under the sun. I had 17 dealers negotiating with each other to get my business. And that was to save a few thousand dollars! Now, I’m Indian and I’m weird, but I did that for buying a car. When I buy a house, I expect to enlist the help of several third-world researchers for months of research and, when I walk into the final negotiation, I will be accompanied by a large hairy man, a metal baton, and a chimp. IT’S THE BIGGEST PURCHASE OF YOUR LIFE. WHY WOULDN’T YOU SPEND TIME UNDERSTANDING THE PROS AND CONS OF IT?

You know, on one hand, much of this site is about getting started and not spending too much time doing endless research. But there’s a balance, as I describe in my article on conscious spending — you need to know the basics, and you need to know much more for real estate, which you can’t just sell the next day if you decide you don’t like it. When I pointed out sites like Patrick.net to my friend, she had never heard of them.

As usual, there are lots of ads and media influences to buy, but ultimately we make the decision on how much to research our real-estate purchases. I’m not saying it’s a bad decision — although my real-estate colors are clearly showing — but when I read a real-estate blog like SocketSite, I realize I’m not nearly as knowledgeable about real estate as others.

The 3-Book Solution
For many, what seems like an intimidating amount of research can be broken down by buying 3 books and reading them. Instead of coming in with a blank slate, you go to Amazon, find the highest-rated books in your area, and read them in a couple of weeks. I’ve done this with books on marketing, venture capital, and psychology. I keep a notepad and write down my questions. After 3 books, you’ll have very targeted and specific questions to ask someone. (Instead of “what should I do???” you might say, “Should I choose a Roth IRA or Roth 401(k)?”)

In July, I wrote about how asking targeted questions can get you targeted answers. To get the right answers about investing, pick up a few books — whether these ones or other ones — and get started by asking the right questions. Here are the three best books to get started investing.

…a one-year ARM, at 5.8 percent on average, now costs only a third of a percentage point less than a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, at 6.2 percent. And ARM holders still face the risk of paying a higher interest rate down the road.

But while there’s a new refi boom in swing, not all borrowers are rushing for the security of fixed loans. One in three homeowners refinancing today is choosing the financially riskier interest-only and payment-option ARMs, according to data from Loan Performance.

Many who are doing so may have chosen those mortgages not because they want them but because they can’t afford the payments that would come due under a 30-year fixed rate, said Keith Gumbinger, HSH’s vice president.

(ARM = adjustable rate mortgage, a mortgage with an interest rate that can change over time.)

Wow. So these homeowners are simply betting that (1) home prices will continue to rise, and/or (2) interest rates won’t rise very much? I’m still learning about real estate, so am I missing something?

“Some may be speculators who want to flip their property when prices improve and want to keep their costs as low as possible in the meantime,” the article adds, which could be a good alternative explanation for what’s going on.

I’m from Sacramento, which has been one of the hottest housing markets in the country for the last few years (here’s some data from 2003). I had lots of opportunities to buy houses with prices that were going up $10,000 per week, where I had to put my name in a raffle just to get the opportunity to buy a house, but I didn’t for a few reasons:

1. I don’t understand real estate (sounds familiar)
2. I don’t understand investing in something when people are getting irrationally excited about it and there’s time pressure, which I pointed out earlier this week usually causes bad decisions. Maybe I’m just not that cool
3. I didn’t want my cash flow going into real estate. Instead, I took it and invested it in myself and my own businesses, which I’m betting can produce a better return than the stock market or real estate. More on that later

Now, with foreclosures and people stagnant growth in real estate, there are blogs like http://thehousingbubbleblog.com where lots of people are gleeful about the impending doom of the homeowners who made bad decisions. I don’t really care about saying I-told-you-so, but I do want to share what happened when I told people I wasn’t going to invest in real estate.

“What?” people said. “You’d be crazy not to buy now. You can put $0 down!” People also thought I was misguided when I told them that I’d consciously decided not to invest. ‘You must not understand’ was a common sentiment I received, along with a pitying look. And more than one person said, “But real-estate prices don’t go down.” True, over the long term, the real-estate market has done well (not as well as the stock market, though). But the short term can really affect you, especially if your ARM payments jump from $1000 to $1900/month. That’s very likely for lots of people when their ARM comes up–and do you think the average family can afford a doubling of their mortgage?

Yet another point for long-term outlook and not investing in stuff you don’t understand. I think. Unless I’m missing something.

(Btw, I’m far from an expert in real estate and I’m still learning a lot, so last year I brought in Owen Johnson to write a series of real-estate posts last year on iwillteachyoutoberich.)

But it’s not just about why I think stocks are better. Many of you have been hearing about the blog http://www.iamfacingforeclosure.com, written by a 24-year-old guy named Casey Serin who “bought 8 houses in 8 months across 4 states with no money down” and is now facing foreclosure. He has openly admitted to lying on his loan applications (to get more in loans), and to bringing his total debt to about $2.2 million ($140,000 of that is in unsecured debt like credit cards). In the meantime, he’s been blogging about his situation. His blog has gotten the attention of USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, and more.

There’s a twist to this story that nobody else knows: I know Casey Serin. We went to high school together. In fact, we ran the computer club together, which is how I got to be the cool guy I am today.

That makes this a weird post to write–not only because he’s done some really shady stuff that really pisses me off, but because he’s not just a one-dimensional character who deserves our scorn: He’s actually doing a lot of good, too. And that makes it hard to describe what I really think of the situation.

The story with me actually begins about a month ago, when I got an email from Casey out of the blue. I hadn’t heard from him since high school 6 years ago. (Emails reprinted with permission.)

From: Casey Serin
To: [BCC list]

Hi Ramit

I hate SPAM too! You’re receiving this because you’re in my personal mailing list. You’re a friend, family or an acquaintance or past co-worker or client. If you don’t want to receive occasion updates from me please use the automatic unsubscribe link at the bottom. Thanks!

Long time no talk! Yes I have not been good at updating everybody and keeping in touch. So here is a 1) quick update about what I’ve been up to, and 2) an opportunity to put your money to work with us in the real estate business

[...]

This January I quit my job to do real estate investing full-time. Together with partners in the area we buy and sell houses for fast gains and we also hold property for appreciation. In the first part of the year I personally bought 7 houses in 4 different states. It’s not all easy – there is definitely a learning curve. It helps to have experienced associates to help me along.

Now what??

We have a unique opportunity to continue to expand the real estate business. Because of the market reversal in California there is going to be many people in trouble with their loans. People have been buying more home then they can afford or refinancing like crazy. Foreclosures are already on the rise and they are going to sky-rocket in the next several years.

There is an opportunity to 1) help people out of trouble and 2) make some money. Service and integrity comes first though. I know what its like to be behind payments and face foreclosure. I refuse to be a “shark” investor.
It must be win-win, or no deal.

Want to participate?

Do you have money that’s sitting in an account somewhere earning an embarrassing 1-3%? Are you comfortable with your retirment money sitting in a volatile stock-market?

Maybe you’re not investing at all. Are you comfortable trusting social security to take care of your retirement?

Invest your money with us and get 24% fixed return secured by real estate.
We use your money to buy and fix houses improving the area and helping sellers in distress.

Benefits to becoming our private lender:

* we pay fixed 24% interest on your money – reliable returns

* compounded monthly – your interest is making interest and it grows exponentially

* secured by real estate – just like a bank, YOU get a mortgage against our properties to protect your investment

* start with as little as 10,000

* may use your 401K or IRA account – get tax advantages

* your money doubles every 3 years

* 10,000 grows into 100,000 in 10 years

Worst case scenario…

If we can’t pay you back, you get a good property. We only put your money into a house that has at least twice the equity as the amount you’re investing. We only invest into nice properties in good neighborhoods. If something were to happen to our business you can normally just sell the house at a discount and get your money out. What stock or mutual fund is going to give you THAT kind of security?

Limited opportunity…

We can only take a certain number of private lenders. Get back to me soon so I can explain in more detail.

Also please forward this to anybody else who may want to get a high return on their money. We pay referral fees!

Anyway…

I would love to hear from you either way. Lets catch-up!

You can imagine my disbelief in getting this email. Here’s an old acquaintance who I haven’t heard from in years, and he pitches me the shadiest-sounding financial “opportunity” I’ve ever heard of. “Fixed 24% interest on your money – reliable returns”? Oh really? Give me a break. When I read that, I immediately knew this “offer” was BS, but just to play along, I asked him what the risks of his idea were. He replied:

From: Casey Serin
To: Ramit Sethi

1) Getting into a bad deal. Minimize with experience. I’ve been investing full time since Jan of this year and dabbled part time for about a year before. I’ve already made my share of mistakes and learned from them. (Good blogging material!) So I’m still pretty new but not BRAND new. To fill in the gaps in my knowledge I work with other experienced investors who help me and partner on deals with me. That’s the “we” part.

2) Private lender needs his/her money out early. Minimize with having other lenders on stand-by. I would not try to keep a private lender locked-in. If I can find another lender to take their place then I’ll give back the money plus interest without any fees.

3) Seller is afraid we won’t make their payment. Minimize with education.
First of all, most sellers I deal with are about to loose their house and already have 2-5 late payments on their record. They don’t have much to loose, especially since I’ll give them money for their equity. Better then loosing the property, getting a foreclosure and getting no money. Second, if I’m investing 10K+ into a deal why would I not make the payments and loose my investment? I’m catching up their loan, improving their credit and helping them get a fresh start. The seller has much more to gain then they have to loose

Ok, now I knew for sure that this was definitely a scam. I said no thanks and politely passed on the offer.

Here’s where it gets even more interesting. THE VERY NEXT WEEK, I received another email from Casey.

I haven’t told everybody the full story about the recent problems in my real estate business. I feel like I need to share my experience and tell it how it is. So I started a blog:
www.IamFacingForeclosure.com

As I learn my lessons and find solutions I will be writing about it. Hopefully this will help others out there who may be going through the same thing.

Also let me know if you have any buyers for my properties. I’m ready to sell them below what I owe via a shortsale to avoid foreclosure.

Those who received my email about Private Money – please forgive me for giving you a false impression. Getting high returns lending on real estate deals is a good thing – you should do it. However, I didn’t fully explain MY situation. I made it seem like I had everything together. Well, as you can see, I’m not a very safe bet right now. As I recover from this thing and rebuild my business I hope to gain your trust over time. Then if you still want to get great returns we can talk. In the mean time I can refer you to other investors who already have a solid track record.

Thanks for your support.

Now this really made me mad. Casey had tried to sucker people into a scam real-estate deal less than a week before he admitted he was going through foreclosure. I was fortunate enough to recognize his pitch as bullshit, but what if someone had gotten conned into it? Financial scams on unsuspecting people make me furious. So I read through his site. It turns out that he had bought multiple houses in different states (hoping to flip them quickly), lied on his applications to get his loans approved, and had grossly miscalculated how much it would cost to renovate and flip them. Bad move. His debt is now over $2 million.

But this isn’t just a 1-dimensional character who deserves our scorn. I know Casey and he’s actually a very nice and sincere guy. We met at a Starbucks a couple weeks ago (he had been invited to give a talk at UC Berkeley), and he filled me in on the details. If you read through his blog, you’ll see that he’s being completely honest about what he did wrong, and he’s accepting responsibility for his situation–despite the thousands of angry comments on his blog. It seems that there are lots and lots of people angry about the housing bubble, both from the people who made stupid choices and screwed themselves by being greedy and the “I told you so” people.

Things have been going all right for him. He’s managed to sell one of his houses, and his press attention has been sending thousands of people to his blog. In fact, Robert Kiyosaki (author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which I reviewed here) heard about Casey’s story and invited him to meet in Phoenix.

Will Casey get out of debt without having to declare bankrupcy? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what to make of this situation. But I do think a few things: First, Casey really messed up by trying to con people into joining his stupid real-estate “opportunity.” That was a scam, pure and simple, and every single one of you needs to beware of that in the future–no matter if your age-old high-school friend pitches you, or your best friend. A scam is a scam. Second, Casey did at least acknowledge his wrongdoing a few days later and invited people to his blog to view his progress. He’s been remarkably positive despite the horrendously negative comments he’s getting. Even when I met him, he knew exactly the situation he was in, and he was still positive about the future. I think that’s pretty impressive. And I’m pretty amazed by what he’s done in 2 months: He’s created a great blog to share what he did wrong, and he’s gotten massive media attention to spread the word.

Is it really right to be starting a blog when you’re over $2 million in debt? Honestly, I wouldn’t be doing it. I’d be doing every single thing I could to sell those properties and (this may be the only time you ever hear me say this) get a stable job. Sometimes, you need to bite the bullet. But he’s chosen a different path and I guess we’ll see how it goes.

For now, I don’t really have any more conclusions or thoughts. Just check out his blog and see for yourself: http://www.iamfacingforeclosure.com (you can start at Why I am Facing Foreclosure).

–
This is a blog on personal finance and personal entrepreneurship for young people. To see more articles from iwillteachyoutoberich.com, check out my table of contents (over 300 posts), my RSS feed, and my newsletter.

Bam! That’s all it took, and I picked up the phone and made my pledge. It wasn’t too big, but it felt GREAT knowing it was being doubled. Same with my previous post about the dollar-for-dollar match for Hurricane Katrina.

Usually we only hear about leverage in real-estate terms, but some of you work at places that double your donations and match your 401(k) contributions. That’s leverage. Use it. It’s really powerful, often with no additional work from you.

PS–Can you think of any other real-life examples of leverage?