Madison MoneySports - Personal Finance Thread

[D_Eclipse9916]

At least real estate Covid proof... for now?

I always sat on two months expenses in cash (savings account) for years just in case. I thought maybe I was crazy, then we starting paying bills by selling Google RSUs. None of that prior value was mine until it sold anyway, but it just feels better to try and weather this with cash than have to sell stock that's worth 20% less than it was in February.

For now, my two rentals have contracts through mid-to-late 2021.  While that is no guarantee; people typically stay put when they have families and don't know where the economy is headed.

Just have to wait out 60-90 days for mortgage rate applications to drop and then banks will drop with the big rate drop.  Dropping my investment property mortgages from 4.375% to 3.75% will save me almost $450/month between the two properties.  More if they continue to drop in rates.  Even now, nobody is willing to beat 4.375% without points in investment properties. 

Taking the down payments from the two homes out of the stock market mid and late 2019 proved out to be a good move.  Sad for my kid's college fund where I waited and threw in a bunch at Dow ~25k but it's got 15 years to recover.  I am relying on Dollar Cost Averaging for our 401k/TSP/IRA/personal funds at this point.