Investment Options

[alkemyst]

i would definitely do #3

of her best friends. She won't mind. The dick won't be entering there for a few months anyway and she can have time with the baby.

 

[brianmanahan]

reported

 

[herm0016]

our future plans include a mountain condo too. we go up there quite a lot. where did you end up buying? would be great to see what kind of a deal you ended up with.

 

[PricklyPete]

Buy your first real M3.

Exact advice I would have expected from you.

 

[PricklyPete]

I'm the worst guy in the world to take investment advice from, so I won't give any. What I will tell you is this:

A baby changes your life in ways you cannot fathom right now b/c you're not a parent yet. TWO babies at the same age? Not to put too fine a point on it but: Kiss your free time, fun time, vacation time, hobbies, sex life, conversation with your wife, time to even swap out a mouse for your PC, all goodbye. For 3 years, minimum.

You will have NO time to do anything like cut the lawn, never mind vacationing in the Alps in your vacation cottage. And when you do have two seconds you'll be talking about all the "business of marriage" such as chores, shopping, bills and your in laws...for two seconds until the babies wake up, cry, poop, fall down, raise the volume on the TV to Deafening Level or drop the remote in the fish tank.

Our son will be five next month; only this past year were we actually able to go an amusement park or movies with him and actually have some modicum of fun. SURE; we play in the house and backyard all the time, but how much fun is it to stay home and watch Dora or the Chuggington DVD for the 2943rd time?

So here's my investment advice; bank it. Don't buy jack squat with it b/c you will have no time to enjoy it OR to go fix it if renters break it. Bank it and 4 years from now re-assess the situation.

You're welcome. ()

*edit*
Didn't read all the way to the end. I see you have made your decision. Good luck with that and congrats on the babies! See you in this forum in six months when you want to know "Do I matter to my wife anymore?" and 5 months after that when you post "Dammit, I pay the bills, why don't I get to make decisions?!" But kids are awesome...fun once you lose the diaper bag. Then you can do some stuff with them. Good luck!

Haha. I will start getting ready for my time in L&R. The babies are 4 months old now and we're still holding it together. No idea what the future holds.

 

[PricklyPete]

3 or 4.

Anything else is butt-fucking retarded with twins on the way. If anyone tells you otherwise, they are absolutely stupid. If you think anything else for any reason (in the next 5 years), you are are absolutely stupid.

Sorry, but it's the truth. You should have learned your lesson the first time.

edit: Saw your decision. And I'm sorry for the regrets you're taking. The risks you're taking could be absolutely detrimental.

We will see if this ends up being the straw that broke the camels back. If it really gets that bad...we can always sell it.

 

[PricklyPete]

our future plans include a mountain condo too. we go up there quite a lot. where did you end up buying? would be great to see what kind of a deal you ended up with.

We ended up deciding on Steamboat. We really wanted to do Crested Butte, but 4+ hour drive each way makes it unlikely we would go often (plus managing a rental that far away seems less than ideal). Steamboat is just far enough away (2.5 hours) to miss the weekend crowds that Summit County has because of the proximity. I did consider Vail, but then we would not have been able to pay cash and other than skiing, the Vail area is not my favorite. Steamboat also has the longest summers. So ultimately it just checked all the right boxes.

The place we got is just a nice 2 bdrm with ski mountain views and walking distance from the gondola. The place sold for 450k in 2006 and has had a lot of remodeling since. The market has not recovered up there yet and this is a divorced couple trying to get rid of each other. Was able to get them down to 246k cash. I am not really expecting the area to ever quite recover to 2006 levels anytime soon, but I can't see me losing to much money on the place. My wife just really cared that it has a heated pool and a few hot tubs. I don't expect this to be the last property we buy in the mountains, but it will bring some cash flow in while we save up for our next purchase.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

We will see if this ends up being the straw that broke the camels back. If it really gets that bad...we can always sell it.

You can always sell it, except that everyone keeps talking about another housing bubble looming....

And you can always sell it, under the assumption someone wants to (and can) buy it...

Since this is a 8m old topic, hows your property working out for you as far as an investment? The market has been friggen amazing, everyone expected a bear market to come along, except it hasn't.

 

[PricklyPete]

You can always sell it, except that everyone keeps talking about another housing bubble looming....

And you can always sell it, under the assumption someone wants to (and can) buy it...

Since this is a 8m old topic, hows your property working out for you as far as an investment? The market has been friggen amazing, everyone expected a bear market to come along, except it hasn't.

The topic is 8 months old...because that is when we were thinking about it (but still had to sell our old investment home). We just signed the contract on the new place and will be closing in a little over a week after we do inspection. The topic just jumped to the top again because I updated the thread explaining that I didn't follow any of the good advice here and decided to go all in. You can give me a hard time when I am complaining in a few months.

I am waiting for the bomb to drop regarding the kids, but so far it has been great. Sure we do not get as much sleep and my mountain biking has been culled to 1-2 a week, but we are pretty happy. Maybe the first 4 months are just the easy months.

 

[Dirigible]

Despite my earlier advice, sounds like you'll get a good amount of use out of it. Life is short, and added fun is an excellent use of money. Enjoy! I'm jealous.

 

[PricklyPete]

Despite my earlier advice, sounds like you'll get a good amount of use out of it. Life is short, and added fun is an excellent use of money. Enjoy! I'm jealous.

Thanks. Financially it probably isn't the best decision, but as you said, you only live once.

The place is already rented for Christmas week for just shy if $3K. Will be interesting out the remainder of the season pays out.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I would dump it into the stock market.

 

[PricklyPete]

I would dump it into the stock market.

Too late... Update in post 37.

 

[BurnItDwn]

yea, guilty of reading only the OP and first few updates

you caught me.

I totally would live on a steamboat if I knew how to keep one running. But those steam engines are a ton of work. Ohh yes, I know, steamboat is the name of the place, and you did not buy an actual steamboat, but that would have been awesome!

 

[PricklyPete]

yea, guilty of reading only the OP and first few updates

you caught me.

I totally would live on a steamboat if I knew how to keep one running. But those steam engines are a ton of work. Ohh yes, I know, steamboat is the name of the place, and you did not buy an actual steamboat, but that would have been awesome!

I should have put the update in The OP instead of just bumping an 8 month old thread.

 

[herm0016]

sounds like a solid buy. good work.

 

[brianmanahan]

I totally would live on a steamboat if I knew how to keep one running.

 

[Jumpem]

Update: Well going against most of the sound financial advice in this thread, we went ahead and bought a mountain condo. We netted a lot more on our Greenville house than I was expecting and decided to sell some land we had in SC as well. The combined along with savings allowed us to buy the place cash. The mountain areas still have not recovered to their highs (May never, but at least I don't feel like I am buying at the top). Bought condo for 54% of what it sold for in 2006 and it has been completely remodeled since. Was being sold as part of a divorce, so between that and the fact that I was paying cash gave me a lot of leverage.

I may come to regret this, but we will see. Looking forward to finishing out mountain biking season here and getting ready for ski season.

Why would you leave Greenville!? It is really nice just north of there in Traveler's Rest.

 

[PricklyPete]

Why would you leave Greenville!? It is really nice just north of there in Traveler's Rest.

Greenville is a great town and our house there was in a fantastic location...but technically I left over 6 years ago due to job opportunities. When I left my last job and decided to settle down, we certainly considered moving back to Greenville, but decided on Denver and don't regret it one bit.

 

[PricklyPete]

sounds like a solid buy. good work.

Gracias, really looking forward to getting up there more often.

 

[BurnItDwn]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019421/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_102

 

[PricklyPete]

Just thought I'd update this thread since I went against most of the advice given. Well we have owned the condo for a year and a couple months and so far it has been a great investment. Financially it has been "ok". It pays for itself (HOA dues/electricity/taxes) with bookings from just the weeks around Christmas. The rest is just gravy. Similar condos in the complex have sold for closer to $300k in the last 6 months and new ones hitting the market are being listed for $315-325 (I think a bit hopeful). From a lifestyle perspective, it has been priceless. With the twins being 18 months and another baby showing up in just a few weeks, we don't get to travel as much as we used to and a lot of vacation seems to be used up visiting (or being visited by) family. By having the mountain condo, we are able to regularly "get away" from our normal lives for a long weekend of relaxing (as much as that is possible with kids). We really couldn't be happier with our decision even if I could have made a better financial decision.