Q&A: Fannie Mae's New Mortgage, House Repairs, and Retiring Early

0:00Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Rich Habits Podcast, a top five business podcast, question and answer edition. It's Thursday, which means the week is almost over and the holiday season's here. We're really excited to move into 2024 with all of you. And oh my gosh, I am so excited about the positive feedback we received on Monday's episode about bonds. It's kind of funny because when you think about bonds, you kind of yawn and like, what the heck is a bond? I don't care about this fixed income retirement stuff. But the way that Robert, Troy, and myself were able to explain things and break things down about the bond trade and the bond idea for 2024 kept you all on the edge of your seats.

0:43So really excited about that positive feedback. If you've not yet listened to that episode, go give it a listen. And as always, if you have a question for the podcast, feel free to shoot us a DM at rich habits podcast on Instagram. We are 400 followers away from 10 ,000 followers on Instagram, which is really exciting. You can also send us an email at rich habits podcast at gmail.com or if you're friends with Robert and I shoot us a text who knows yes very excited going into 2024 we are almost ready to launch the rich habits podcast website which is so so exciting finally I know I know I know and also the rich habits newsletter which is going to be very very good is coming out real soon as well so lots of holiday presents in the future for each and every one of you that follows along.

1:31With that being said, let's jump into the first question here from Todd D. Todd says, Hi, Austin and Robert. I have a car loan for the amount of$10 ,866. I paid$250 a month for it at a 5.7 % interest rate. So about$51 per payment is going to interest every month. Now my gut tells me to pay this off. In general, I don't like debt and I don't like making these payments. I have about$52 ,000 in savings and$10 ,000 in a certificate of deposit. Do I pay the car off or invest my parked money elsewhere? A little more about me. I have a high-income job in software making$130 ,000 per year, and I have no other debt other than having rent at about$2 ,200 per month.

2:18P.S. I just dropped$5 ,000 in a QQQ. Super excited for you, Todd. We love it when you invest in the index funds. Okay. Good question. Lots of details. Robert, you want to take a first stab at this? Todd, I think it's a great question. Congrats on all of your success. But here's my takeaway. If you look at QQQ for the year, you just alluded that you invested in QQQ. It's up, I think, around 40 % for the year in 2023. VOO, another one of our favorites, the S &P 500 is up around 20 % for the year. So even at 6 % interest, I think that's low enough that you keep paying on the car, you keep the minimum payments paid on time, keep your credit high, but invest the rest of that money and continue to invest your money in these markets like the S &P and the NASDAQ.

3:07But also you could start touching some more on cryptocurrency. I think there's a big run-up coming in crypto as well going into 2024. So for me, I know you don't like debt. You've alluded to that, but I would keep paying the minimum payments and I would put the rest towards these other investments we're discussing. And something else I want to call out too, Todd, obviously it's your money. If you don't like that in the payments, do whatever you want. We're just two guys on the internet. But something you mentioned is that you have rent, you pay$2 ,200 a month in rent, you make$130 ,000 a year, and you're sitting on what seems to be a cumulative of$62 ,000 in savings.

3:43If I were you, I'd begin to really consider what it might look like to buy a house, Maybe you're at that point in your financial wealth building journey where you're ready to buy some sort of property. Obviously, Robert and I think that the duplex, triplex, or quadplex is the way to go. Robert talks a lot about the 5 % Fannie Mae mortgage that's around the corner here. So there's a bunch of ways to think about buying your first property in a way that's very responsible, especially for someone making$130 ,000 a year. Love it. Yeah. And also, we didn't touch on the fact that I didn't hear Roth IRA mentioned anywhere in this overview.

4:17And I think with the Roth being raised to$7 ,000 for 2024, it'd be a great place to get that started and maxed out every year, considering you're a high earner. So that's one more tentacle I would add to this strategy. Really great question, Todd. Thank you. Our next question comes from Anissa R. She says, Hi, Austin and Robert. My name is Anissa, and I love listening to your podcast. Thank you so much, Anissa. We love creating these episodes. I have a couple of questions, and I know you might not be able to answer all of them, but the first one is most important. My husband and I are in our early 30s, and we make about$250 ,000 per year.

4:53We're currently aiming on maxing out our Roth IRAs. We have investments in Fundrise and SPYI. We're investing toward our 401ks and everything in between. We are wondering how else we can continue to allocate our investments. Separately, we also want to start investing into a 529 account for our one-year-old, but we're a bit concerned about too much exposure to the S &P 500. Do you have any perspective here? Okay, so my brain immediately goes to, wow, you all are making$250 ,000 per year. You have a one-year-old. I'm not sure if anyone's staying home to take care of the one-year-old or not, so that income gets cut in half in the future, but let's say it doesn't.

5:31Let's say you all are some rock stars making a quarter million a year, and you've got 50, 60,$70 ,000 per year to invest. immediately what happens in my brain is how the heck can I allocate this money in a way to help me retire early? Now, retiring early means a lot of different things for a lot of people, but very simply, it's just a math equation. If your investments are producing cashflow for you that is the same or more than the monthly expenses that you allocate to living, then you're sort of retired, right? You are financially free, as some people call it, financially independent retire early is a FIRE acronym movement that people like to talk about.

6:11But that's where my head goes. So maybe for you, it's like, okay, let's make sure that we have the retirement figured out. If that's the Roth IRA, the 401k, the SPYI, the Fundrise, all that fun stuff. But maybe you still have 50, 60,$70 ,000 a year hanging around. Does that mean maybe you can now go out and buy your first rental property and start making some cashflow that way? Perhaps that might be an Airbnb, that might be some sort of triplex or duplex, or maybe you even allocate more money to SPYI inside of a normal taxable brokerage account so you can withdraw the dividend income, the distributions on a monthly basis to your checking account without having those retirement penalties because it might be in a retirement account.

6:49So I just want you guys to be thinking about it like that. You are definitely making enough money where early retirement is on the table. It just comes down to how do you want to be thinking about investing with retirement and early retirement in mind. It's kind of a good balance there. But Robert, I'd love to hear your perspective here as well. So that was really, really good. And I'll just add a few points to it. In my opinion, you're right. High earners in a good spot already. I'm hearing middle 30s. So I would look at it this way. I would probably add in some bond exposure going into 2024.

7:25We've been talking about that. So maybe some BNDI. That is a NEOS fund that we really love. For anyone listening, you can look it up at neosfunds.com. I would also look at maybe doing some venture investing into startups because at your rate, you can start to take some higher risk investments. So I would look at REITs and venture investing. And then I would also fully optimize a crypto portfolio as part of my overall strategy, because I believe that crypto is going to be the most profitable and best sector to be investing in over the next two to three years. So that would be what I would add to what you're already doing.

8:05You guys are doing a great job. But those are the items that I would consider to get you fully flushed out to make sure that you're fully diversified throughout your portfolios. So that way you can withstand any ups and downs in the markets. And as someone who earns take-home pay in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year myself, what Robert has described is largely what I'm doing, as well as what I described, right? I've got my own sort of early retirement path that I'm working on. But I mean, I invested about$200 ,000,$220 ,000 this year into the markets. And that was across cryptocurrency.

8:38That was across my solo 401k retirement accounts. I also, to your point, opened up the 529 Anissa, and I'm doing that for my nieces and nephews. I'm doing about$150,$200 per month there on Vanguard. I've got it in a 80 % S &P, 20 % VUG, which is a growth fund that Vanguard has kind of waiting there. There's a bunch of ways to allocate. Oh, I also did some venture investing, to Robert's point. And if you're looking about different ways to execute upon this, the only advice that I could give you is to try and keep it as simple as possible. You know, there's a thousand cryptocurrencies out there.

9:12Just grab your favorite two, Bitcoin, Ethereum, maybe an XRP or a Chainlink or, you know, something else you might read online that you're passionate about. And then from a venture investing perspective, there's AngelList, there's, I think, StartEngine, there's Republic.com, there's a bunch of these other little things like that. And if that is even sort of confusing, then maybe it's a better idea to take that money and go buy real estate and start your own company, quote unquote, as a real estate investor. There's just a bunch of ways to think about this, but if you can keep it as simple as possible, then I think you're going to be just fine.

9:41And the last piece of advice, kind of reflecting upon myself here, is tax optimization. Work with a tax professional. You all now are making enough money where taxes matter, right? I had to pay$120 ,000 in 2023 to taxes, and I hate that. And there's definitely ways I could have optimized, and I didn't. So I'm definitely going to be optimizing in 2024 for that. And so as high income earners yourselves, tax optimization is very important. Love it. Love it. Love it. All right. Let's go to the next question. Our next question comes from David C. David says, I love what you guys are doing and sharing this great information with everyone.

10:17Thanks, David. We appreciate that. David says, I'm due a fairly sizable retention bonus in Q1 of 2024. It should be about$40 ,000. My filing status is married and my wife and I filed jointly. She does not work. From a taxes perspective, is it wise to contribute 25 % or more of this bonus to my employer-sponsored 401k, which subsequently would allow him to write that off of his taxable income, or eat the taxes and contribute toward a Roth IRA and a brokerage account that provides more autonomy on how my money is invested. Robert, do you want to take a first stab at this? I would love to. So David, assuming looking at the email address and you've got the number 87 in there, so if we extrapolate that out and we assume you're 36 years old, in your mid-30s, in my opinion, I would take the tax hit now.

11:06Because at the end of the day, I'd rather pay the taxes now on a little bit than pay them later on a lot. So the way to look at it is take the tax hit now, get it into that Roth IRA, and then enjoy the tax benefits for the rest of your career and the rest of your life until you start taking it out. So that's what I would do. I love the fact that you understand the autonomy. You're going to have a higher performance rate of just better returns overall, normally in a Roth IRA than a 401k. So that would be my opinion to get you the most bang for your buck in the long run. I'm right there with you, Robert.

11:39Couldn't have said it better myself. Really good question, David. And congrats on the$40 ,000 bonus, man. That's awesome. Our next question comes from George from New York. George says, firstly, thank you for doing the podcast and providing all this information. It is incredible. George, thanks for listening, man. We appreciate it. So George says, I have a home with a mortgage, and I'm anticipating and moving in about three to five years. There are some repairs or upgrades to my current home that can be done, which is mainly fixing the front stoop and driveway with high quality pavers as the original contractor did not do the job correctly.

12:12Adding pavers in the backyard as well would be cool because I'd have a spot to hang out and cook. However, the front yard is much more important, not only for curb appeal, but because the current stoop is caving in and might not last much longer. The question is, does it make sense to spend$20 ,000 to$25 ,000 to do both the front yard and the backyard? I have this money in cash. Or should I spend a lot less, just worry about the front yard and forget about the backyard and sell it as is? Robert, I don't really know. So you got a real estate mind. I'd love to hear how you're thinking about this.

12:46George, this is a great question, and I'm going to take a stab at it to really help you think it through. So the way I would look at it is you're going to put$25 ,000 in for this beautification, fix it up, make the curb appeal great, give yourself a little bit more outdoor living space for the back. So if you were to look at it, the$25 ,000, and let's say you end up living there for the maximum of five years. So that's$5 ,000 a year for five years. You have to ask yourself, is the quality of living increase worth it for you over those five years? And then also do those repairs and those added bonuses that you're putting in, does that increase the house's value$25 ,000 over a five-year span or$5 ,000 a year?

13:32And only you would know that based on the comps of the comparable properties in your area and what the capital appreciation is in that area. So if you were to assume, and again, we have limited information, but if we were to assume this is a$300 ,000,$500 ,000 home and you have a, let's say, a 5 % capital appreciation per year, then it would more than outweigh the benefits by doing these projects in the future for future value increase of the home. That would be my takeaway, but also don't forget to think about it from a quality of life perspective. If the driveway's kind of torn up, that's no fun.

14:12The front stoop is dangerous. That's embarrassing. So you have to look at it of more than just the money and the expenditure, but also what it does for you as far as quality of life for you, your family, and your friends that visit over the next three to five years. I'm gonna largely agree. I am a big proponent. As someone who bought a house recently and I've been investing thousands to fix it up and the quality of life, I've probably spent$10 ,000 to$12 ,000 on this new place over the last 12 months or so across furniture, paint, a new pantry, just stuff like that. I have the propensity to do those things because I'm a big believer in quality of life, being happy, being productive and efficient, and just really loving where I live.

14:56And so if George has the same mentality and he's going to be there for another five years, I agree. I feel like if you do fix up the driveway and the stoop in the backyard and you're feeling really good about it, you will probably see not only a$20 ,000 to$25 ,000 increase in value to your home, but that increase will probably compound on itself over the next three to five years, especially if there's other comparables there that can justify it. So I'm with Robert on this one, George. If you feel good about it and the numbers make sense, you said you have this all in cash, so you wouldn't be going in debt for that, which is a good idea.

15:26This is great. I'm here for it. Because you mentioned here in your question that do I do this or do I put the money in investments? This is an investment, right? You will make money on this. This is kind of an investment. So I want you to think about that as well. Yeah, and one of the things that I always look at for a question like this is, and we've all been there, where you go to a friend's house, they live in a subdivision, they just bought a home, you know, that's within a year or two or three old and you go there for a party and you go out back and they literally have this little five by eight cement slab in the back and that's it.

16:00they don't have anything else. So you're all sitting in these little chairs trying to have a good time. So when you add that outdoor space, it really enhances the value of the property. Because just like with an Airbnb, the Airbnbs that win are the ones where they thought ahead. They have a hot tub. They have a cool fire pit. And I don't mean a fire pit that you bought at Home Depot for$129. I mean a cool fire pit that eight people can sit around. So then they add some hammocks out in the little wooded area. All of those little enhancements really, really bring value to a property. So I think you're on the right track understanding that maybe adding that back patio area with some good seating or a cool fire pit will greatly enhance the value of the property, but also your quality of life in the meantime.

16:47Really good question, George. Thanks for asking this. This was really thought provoking. So our next question comes from Adam C. Adam says, Hey guys, I've been loving the podcast. Thank you for all the invaluable information. Adam, we love that you listen to the podcast. Thank you so much. My girlfriend and I are planning to get married in the next two years, and we are both interested in Robert's idea of both buying multifamily properties with FHA loans and living in them until we get married. Can you go more in depth on how to go about doing that without overextending ourselves financially? Robert, what do you think?

17:19I love this strategy. More and more people should do it. And I would say the first step in this is understanding each of your financial situations as they stand currently, and that's by doing a budget and figuring out your debt-to-income ratio. See what you qualify for so you know you're not buying too much property to where it does overextend you, and then just really work within the confines of the budget and the debt-to-income ratio so you know where you're at. That would be step one. Step two would be figuring out how you're going to achieve this and what program you're going to use. You're going to want to look at the FHA program, but also the new Fannie Mae 5 % down program.

17:57For anyone that's listening, this is a great program. You can buy up to$1.3 million of property. I'm not saying you should max it out. You can buy up to four doors and the requirements are much lower than even the FHA loan. And this is great because you only are required to put 5 % down. So that's where I would look first or the FHA. So that's number two. Then number three in this strategy is figuring out where you want to have these properties. I'm sure you have an area in mind where it has good long-term growth and you see the capital appreciation and the gentrification happening. So that would be step number three and figuring it out because you have to look at it this way.

18:39When you buy that duplex, triplex, or quadplex, you're going to be currently lowering down your monthly overhead drastically for each of you. Because if you live in the one unit for the required one year prior to your marriage, the tenants are going to be paying your mortgage for the most part, if not fully. So this is a great strategy for both of you to do. And it really just comes down to identifying how much you can afford and where you're at based on the numbers of the properties you're looking at. and then understanding what the numbers will be once it's purchased and you have the tenants involved.

19:15Because not only are you gonna have the cash flow, hopefully, but it's the reduced overhead that you will have living in it because essentially these tenants are gonna be paying the mortgage, but then also you have the capital appreciation and the tax write-off because you're gonna be having that depreciation. So there are more than just the strategy in itself that brings this to life and makes it a great, way to start off your marriage? Because look at it this way. Let's say you do this this year, you live in it for 2024, then you get married, then you fill each of those units. You're starting off the marriage as one entity with four doors, six doors, or eight doors of revenue every single month, which is just going to be incredible when you start off your financial journeys together, having that amount of income and capital appreciation every single year.

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21:06Yeah, that was a really good answer. To speak probably more tactically, I think what you should probably do, Adam, is what are rents going for right now in your area? Is it$1 ,800,$2 ,000,$2 ,400? What is the average rent in your area? For example, in my neighborhood, I think rent right now is around like the$2 ,000 to$2 ,200 a month range. So let's assume you borrow$400 ,000 for this. That is a monthly payment of about$3 ,500, right? So make sure when you do this and you're thinking about this, it's like, okay, I got to pay$3 ,500 a month out to the lender. And I'm renting this out for call it$2 ,000 or$2 ,200, which means I still am on the hook for$1 ,000 assuming everything goes right.

21:51We all know everything doesn't always go right all the time. So you want to make sure you maybe set aside a little bit more money for repairs or escrow or, for example, house insurance for me was increased by 40 % between 2022 and 2023. So there's a lot of little things like that that are just going to kind of jump in your way here. So make sure whenever you're doing this, both you and your soon-to-be wife, you all have all of the numbers flushed out. Every single detail is figured out because the last thing you want to do is, to your point, get overextended financially. you have a duplex, she has a duplex, and your mortgage is$35 ,000,$4 ,000 a month, but you're not bringing in as much rental income as you thought.

22:28And then even after you guys eventually move in together, both of your duplexes aren't cash flowing, right? There's a lot of like things that could go wrong here, but it will not happen if you flush your numbers out and make sure that you have every single thing figured out. I love it. Great question, Adam. So our next question comes from Faith S. Faith says, I've opened my Roth IRA and we're in the process of opening one for my husband. Thank you so much for your guidance. You all are amazing. Here's my question this morning. At what age do you recommend someone should start transitioning their portfolio from more aggressive options to a little bit more conservative and safer options?

23:02And what safer options would you recommend? Faith, I 100 % recommend that you scroll back like four or five episodes to our conversation with Rachel Aguirre. She's the head of investment product at iShares. Now, iShares has introduced and launched a new suite of target date fund ETFs that are much more intuitive and very smart compared to the traditional target date funds. These are ETFs that rebalance on a quarterly basis, and they're going to make sure that they're moving you away from ultra aggressive to more conservative as you approach retirement. So just find the year you want to retire and pair it up with one of their ETFs.

23:43They've got like 10 or 12 that are in there that you can choose from and look at the holdings and kind of better understand their own mix of aggressive versus conservative. So you are very comfortable with that. But the risk adjusted return is what they really like to harp on there. And I think that's what you're asking. But Robert, do you have any additional perspective? Yeah, I think a lot of people really struggle with this question. And it's a great question, Faith, and we appreciate it. I would say you don't have to dial back the aggression as early as you might think, because if you're really well balanced and diversified, then you're going to want to have a portion of the various different items that you hold within your portfolios in aggressive, more aggressive items.

24:25But overall, as long as you have that diversification, I don't think you have to worry about it as much. And this is the issue that Austin and I, and I'll speak for myself in this instance, have had with target date funds because I feel a lot of them, not the iShares ones that Austin alluded to, But a lot of target date funds really dial the aggression back far too early for people. And I think you just leave too much money on the table. So to answer the question, to me, I don't think you have to change the aggression at all, even at 45 or 50 years old. Because you're well diversified, it's just going to put you in a position where you're prepared for any pullbacks in the market.

25:04You've got yourself covered with those bonds, those treasury bills. You've got some crypto over here, but then you've got your basket, hopefully in your Roth IRA of those tried and true index funds like we speak of, VOO, QQQ, VTI, and some of those. So I think it all starts with diversification and figuring out your risk tolerance so you can make sure to optimize your earnings and your gains over time to the best amount you can based on your risk tolerance. Really good question, Faith. Thank you so much. So our last question comes from D Nellie G. D Nellie G asks, I just had a baby and I'm still waiting on her social security number to come in so I can start opening her accounts.

25:49Congratulations on the baby, praying for a happy, healthy baby. We've had a lot of listeners have babies recently. Last episode, we had another baby announcement. So congratulations. Now the question is, am I able to open up an IRA for her with no earned income? Is it smart to open up both a 529 and an IRA. So no, you cannot open and contribute toward a Roth IRA with a baby that doesn't earn any money, right? Now, if this was a 15 or 16-year-old that might've been a lifeguard or is like working fast food or like, you know, has a job and is able to earn money, then yeah, you can take up to the amount of money they earned that year and invest it, assuming you don't max it out just yet that year.