David Lereah is now referred to as the “Baghdad Bob” of real estate.  A better comparison may not exist.
——-

LOL ... thanks for starting my Friday morning off with a good laugh!  Too Much!

m1Xed uP CaPs is L33t, d00D! It’s a sophisticated play to the hacker market by scrambling the caps around but not so much as to freak out the general populace. (/joke)

Oh, and the short sale graphic is a hoot.

They didn’t spend the money on furniture or art work either.

Is the 2nd mortgage always a recourse loan? If yes, the owner may not be off the hook this easily.

What no picture of the 2.5 car gararage? WTF is .5 of a car?

A severe lack of pictures of the FANTASTIC UPGRADES.

If it sells for $550k it wil be a miracle. This property is a poster child for the boom and idiocy of the pricing.

Awesome song for this whole mess.

The banks already own most of the bubble homes.  Do they realize this, or are they hoping for a gov’mnt miracle?

Ahhh, the pride of ownership.

The HELOCed Escalade / Suburban exodus to Texas is in the 3rd inning.

We will know we are at a bottom when half of the Escalades in the OC are gone.  That’s my metric for 08’.

the 1.5 portion of the garage lets you fit your HELOCed monstrosity.

After looking at the rest of the photos on redfin, it just looks like some run of the mill house. That is such a tiny, cheap-looking kitchen. Definitely not gourmet And the towel?? Don’t you just love that towel so lovingly draped over the shower stall?

“does need a carpet cleaning” - WTF is this supposed to mean?? This realtor is listing a home with dirty carpets? Aye dios mio! I’m guessing s/he just doesn’t give a fook right now.

I am not very impressed by this home. It looks like some pos tract house.

Sold in 1999 for $312k. And some poor schmuck bought it for $770k? Where’s my ROFLcopter.

As to where the cash-out second mortgage went, who knows? They could possibly have had a lot of other debts they wanted to pay off. They had a down payment of at least $120k so maybe that wanted that back, too. If they were smart, they would have off-shored the money for after the short-sale.

Is “Baghdad Bob” the endearment for that Iraqi who was saying “all is well” or some stuff when the U.S. was invading?

Is the .5 is for a small car or a big lawnmower? Oh, that’s right - you don’t need one of those in Irvine….

Nevermind, googled it myself - the former Information Minister.

I thought Irvine was ‘planned’ and you wouldn’t need a car to get around, much less a wonderful gas-guzzling deal. [/sarcasm]

Taxes paid in 2006: $10,764

I would walk away too.

Most of those props that ipop listed yesterday on Backup Status will have the same problem. People getting in oveer their heads.

Check todays headlines. Slow growth, slow jobs, slow wage gains.

Good lord, can that garage be any more prominent in the front? Or is that the back? I grew up in Chicago where all the garages are accessed through the back alley and all the houses had at least some relationship to the street. Maybe I should submit this to Jim Kunstler’s site (http://www.kunstler.com/index.html) for the “Eyesore of the Month”.

Heh!

Maybe Lereah and that tool who wrote Dow 36,000 should get together and compare their relative assholishness.

That ‘asshole’ is James Glassman, and he is (surprise, surprise) Karen Hughes’ successor at State as chief “rah-rah-America” promoter.

Gee, with the $160,000 or so profit from the refi they’ll be able to afford the 20% down payment they’ll need for their next McMansion.

If I had cashed out $200,000 with $0 downpayment, I would walk away in a heart beat, specially when Bush Administration announced that IRS will not assess any taxes on people who went into Foreclosure. 

One thing that I am not clear on is whether they will consider people who cashed out equity to fall into this category and get tax break? Does anyone know?

One thing is there for sure, Bush’s plan gives all the more reason for people to walk away as they are actually saving taxes that they dont have to pay now.

Bwahahahaha! Riiiight.

Like the lender has 2 million lawyers to go after all the folks bailing on their 2nd mortgages.

Yep. No photos of FANTASTIC UPGRADES or of Friendly Neighbors. I’m Calling BS on This One!!!

I’ve been in one of these models previously (Harvard Square is an area we’d consider buying in) and the kitchen is small and poorly laid out.  It feels like a small apartment kitchen.

Actually everything feels small in this particular model given the number of rooms they squeezed into 2200 sf.  This is on the “bad” side of Harvard Square, very close to the 5, where the lot sizes got small.  Based on the pictures, pretty much everything appears to be from the original builder.  White Daltile went in across that whole development I think…  Harvard Square has a great circular park in the middle of the tract and on the other side of the park, the lot sizes got much bigger.  You can find 6000+ sf lot on a 2400sf home there.

There isn’t much turnover in Harvard Square so few transactions have gone through recently.  Based off the transactions this summer, which would have had this property in the low $800K range, it is probably worth $700-725K in today’s market.  A larger (3100sf) nicer home on the “good” side of the development has been on the market for quite some time with no takers at a list in the mid $900K range.

Now all we need are corporate earnings warnings to start coming out…  That’ll hammer the market.  I would very much enjoy a nice 1,000 pt. Dow drop right about now.

good question, OC Homehunter…I was wondering the same and did not find definitive answers…historically, a bank could go after the homeowner for nonpurchase mortgage $‘s and pursue a judgement that it may/may not ever collect on, but would only send the 1099 reporting amount of debt forgiveness for debt negotiated as forgiven - unless the statutory collection period after nonpayment was up (that’s several years) after which case they 1099 them. 

I hope there are a few in the banking industry today that will remember this debacle.  I was never in the home mortgage biz, but as one who remembers the last banking crisis caused by RE in the late ‘80’s/early 90’s, I always considered one’s prior short sales as a huge negative in my lending decisions, be it residential or commercial properties…and in the last few years, a lot of lenders could have cared less.  Because stockholders look quarter to quarter, not long term at stock as ‘investments’ and want maximum earnings growth in the good times. And the comp structure for people making loans had no incentive for credit quality, only $ volume of loan originations.

It’s amazing how much greed results in people justifying their decisions (bankers and homeowners alike). 

But what’s that saying ? “Be scared when they are greedy, but be greedy when they are scared”... so when those who have conservatively saved their $$ and housing drops 40%, you might get that house of your dreams…the banks that have enough capital to survive will, eventually, be clamoring for your low ball offers down the road…

I agree the lay out does look horrible. The 5 bedrooms and 3 baths is nice but squeezed into 2,240 sq.feet, it’s definitely a shoebox. The back yard looks nice and seems somewhat spacious.

This is the first time I’ve seen a real estate agent offer up friendly neighbors as part of the package.  I am wondering how friendly the neighbors will be after this home sells for $450,000.

Love the “short sale” graphic. Pure genius.

Love the connection built by IR between the run away borrowers and the lenders via this great Eagles song. You ROCK, IR!

here is the link to the bill that was passed

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:6:./temp/~c110vudnYk::

it states that debt up to 2 million can be forgiven tax free as long as it is for your primary home debt. the debt must be acquisition debt, which i interpret to be purchase money loans, not refis.

“I am wondering how friendly the neighbors will be after this home sells for $450,000.”

LOL

I am thinking that the “friendly neighbor” comment was made to offset the fact that the homes are so close to each other. Ample side yards are obsolete in Irvine.

You gave me a great laugh this morning IR - Thank You.  These jackholes like David Lereah should be ashamed of themselves.  He should be receiving a lot of hate mail right about now from the fools that followed his dumb advise.  The best decision I made in 2007 was NOT to buy a condo.

Thank you for the continuing sound advice and education that you provide for us all.  I have read several housing blogs in the last several months, and the people that log onto this one are more classy and professional than the rest.

I hope everyone here is taking a good look at Ron Paul.

Google the “Ron Paul - House of Cards” video - Makes you think…

Exactly—the guy who said “we have the Americans surrounded!” a few hours before the thing was all over.

There are some choice quotes from this guy that are so far from the truth, the similarities to the NAR’s spokesHOLEs is amazing.

“The Americans are being routed right now by our Glorious Army back to their barracks.  Our Navy has sunk a great number of aircraft carriers and surface ships and our Air Force has shut down many stealth bombers. 

What?  That booming noise?  Those are fireworks being set to glorify The Mother of all Victories.”

That place is another overpriced piece of crap.  It really blows my mind that someone would pay over $700k for a glorified townhome in the middle of nowhere.

I wonder how loud the freeway is when they open a window.

$400k tops.

how does a 5 bed, 3 bath home get crammed into 2200 sq ft?  the bedrooms must be closets.

Yes, the backyard does appear the one redeeming quality this property has. It even has trees blocking what would otherwise be a birds eye view for the Friendly Neighbors into the home and yard.

The bill also includes forgiveness for debt incurred in the “substantial improvement” of the primary home, which will be (dishonestly) used by homedebtors to get tax forgiveness on the 2nd or HELOC.

Trust me, many of these homedebtors will get phony receipts and contracts drawn up to document the so-called “substantial improvement” to their homes, although we all know the money was spent on a blinged out SUV, hookers, trips to Cancun and plastic surgery.

The tax forgiveness bill was too broadly worded, and pretty much allows homedebtors to walk tax free, if they can rationalize lying to the IRS.  My guess is that many will be able to given our “victim mentality” society.

If you throw the address into google maps, you can see it is very close to the railroad tracks. That will be a nice sound to hear at 5-am.

My place is 4 beds, 2.5 baths and 2500 sq ft, and my rooms are small.

Really?  Where do you guys all keep your down payment money?  A 1000 point drop would really suck for me. 

Short selling, but not the kind referred to on RE blogs.

We get linked to quite a bit, but I think it is pretty cool, when Barry at the Big Picture posts about and links to IHB.

Hat tip to Effenheimer for the .jpg.

got the same deal minus 100 sq ft.  except for the master, the bedrooms are smallish. But they must be bragging size compared to this baby.  is this considered “west” irvine?  i note it is next to the 5/tollroad intersection.  ipop tells me it’s real special out there.

I keep my down payment fund liquid.  $99K at Countrywide Bank (great rates on their Savingslink, just stay below the FDIC insurance level) and the rest at virtualbank.com.

I’m not shorting equities, but I went very heavy on bonds in early December and added good-sized GLD investments to all the IRAs a few weeks back when it pulled back to 78.  Also rebalanced my entire 401k into Fidelity’s Prime Fund.  All new 401k contributions are going into Prime Fund as well.

If everyone here is right about recession and inflation, bonds and gold are good places to be.

Dude….. we got lots of money in our 401Ks.  No way to short.  At least we moved our stuff into international and nothing into “market rates”.

I’d love to be into gold right now.

Amazingly, the freeway isn’t very loud at that location.  There is a monster-sized soundwall protecting that area of Harvard Square from the 5, so it’s actually not that bad.  The 5 noise is actually worse in parts of HS further from the freeway since there is no super tall wall blocking the sound.

Oddly, the bedrooms are tiny also when you go to those 4000 sq foot monstrosities in Portola and Newport Coast.

In those McMansions you get a huge master bedroom suite… almost an apartment.  Lots of wasted space in hallways and baths.  Four tiny (10 by 10 ) bedrooms.  A relatively large den/kitchen and a vestigial front living room.

I dunno… but with reasonable design, you can have 4b/2ba in 1800 square feet and not feel cramped.  My house used to be like that.  Now it’s 2700 sq feet with 5b/3ba and it feels larger than those 4000 sq foot mcMansions.

IMO, downpayment money should never be held in anything other than cash. (Money market, CD, passbook etc)

It’s the train whistle that’ll wake you up! The train itself isn’t too bad. I moved into an apartment about a mile or so from the tracks and the trains blow their whistles like mad! The first night I woke up every dang time a train ran through and blew its whistle, almost every hour. By the end of the week, though, it didn’t bother me one bit. Now, after 15 months, I don’t even notice it anymore.

Are there basements in any of these houses?

“What’s a basement?” says guy who lives West of I-5

How about shorting the homebuilder stocks?  While I’m not as much of a bear as some others here,  I think all these crappy courtyard homes they are trying to pawn off for half a million around here are going to tank. 

Anyone else thinks the homebuilders who kept trying to cram as many units as close together as possible are going to eat it hard(er)?

I think they have a basement at High Time Liquor in Costa Mesa.  That’s where they keep the California white wines and the imported stuff.

Irvine Renter and all that contribute to IHB,

It’s nice to get some PUB from a guy (Barry Ritholtz) who operates the best economic / market driven blog on the net!  The Best and Smartest, Bar None!

My Fla house has 4 bedroom in 2850 square feel and is nice and cozy.  The rooms are nicely sized, not too big, not too small.

A convenient way to reduce your exposure to equities if 401k options are limited is to take out a loan.  You pay yourself interest as you make payments back.  Park the loan proceeds into a money market somewhere.  When and if you decide equities are healthy to go back in to, you pay back the loan.

When we thought we were buying a house this summer, I pulled $50K out of 401k to increase my down so I could buy non-contingent up to $1M.  Although we decided not to buy, I didn’t pay back the loan yet as the general direction in equities has been down and could go down quite a bit further.  The loan processing fee was $150, but that $50K has been earning 3.5% after tax while the Dow has fallen 1200 pts over that span.

I think I am going to add a precious metals fund to our 401k lineup so people can get exposure there if they desire.  Metal is a good inflation hedge…

That’s very interesting.

Do you have to keep those loan funds segregated or can you commingle them?

I did some shorts on XHB earlier in the year (homebuilders ETF) but personally wouldn’t do any today.  In my view the homebuilders reacted quickly to taking the pain on their financials in terms of writing down inventory values.  The group has lost 60% of its value since earlier in the year so much bads news is already baked in to homebuilder share prices. 

Any signs of stability in the housing market will bring the bulls back into the sector IMO.  As a matter of fact, if I saw XHB break below current support levels (around 16-17) and then trough, I might think about buying.  Remember, equities are typically a good leading indicator.  3-6 months before the rest of the world figures out that housing has stabilized, homebuilder stocks will probably begin moving upward.

This is just a personal opinion, not investment advice.  Do your own research…

It all depends on your 401k plan documents.  Technically, I was supposed to use the loan proceeds only for a home purchase and should return them.  I built my companies plan to offer a loan for home purchases at an 8% rate, and a loan for any purpose at 9%.  The general purpose loan funds can be used for any purpose and co-mingled I believe.

hi, you guys got narrow scope in term of room size.

my argument is weather the market would come back foundational, the normalization process may or may not happen during next two to five year.
why? American mentality!!!

we had teach bubble, house bubble, next wave will generate into gold, emerge market( China, India), or commodity (wheat, corn,  sugar)
There are multiple dimensions in globe economy,

one side, Wall street need to be survive in any case, they have our 401k or other pension fund to play. another side most average American can not save hard,  third foreign new richer put on the cash on table.

In the turbulence environment as today, base on the rational or theoretical, could we judge there is a foundational in near future?
oh, boy, It’s American, we have to take risk somehow, otherwise, you lost and miss that foundational( sure, i think there is, but when and how much, the art of state, only looking back u know,) .

VoC is west of the 5 and they have basements in at least one of those developments.  Not in CG, in Columbus Square on the Tustin side.  You need the basement to hide in when they decide to blow up one of the blimp hangers…

Everyone market promoter is an asshole.  The Dow could get to 36,000 in nominal terms if inflation takes over and the dollar goes to hell.  It’s called melting up.  Afterall, stocks are an asset priced in US dollars.  However, a 175% increase in the Dow will be considered a “crash” because gold will be up 10,000%.  It’s all relative and the dollar is designed to fool people and distort their view of value.  The dollar has consistently been devalued for 30 years as official government and Federal Reserve policy.  Get ready for civil unrest.

It’s kind of its own little area.  If anything, I’d call it Walnut or College Park, but the houses here are much newer than the normal place in those areas.  “West” Irvine is served by TUSD.  The area this house is in is served by IUSD, with College Park Elementary and Vendano (sp?) Intermediate.  They are older schools with so-so APIs as compared to many other IUSD peers.

Huh?

if west irvine is TUSD, there goes another reason to live in westpark.  My immigrant neighbors eyes glaze over when they tell me their high school kids attend “uni.”  It plainly has considerable meaning to them.  You would think their kids are in medical school or something.

A basement is a dry pool waiting to fill with the next storm.

You wouldnt find any tract homes in So Ca w basements, it would have to be a custom home, too expensive to dig.

My condo has a large basement garage… holds about 65 cars w central elevator and it’s flooded 3 or 4 times since it was built in 90.  The first time it flooded in the storms in 92 or 93 when the developer was having an open house, some unsuspecting couple parked in the garage, took the elevator up to the open house units and by the time they went down the garage there was already 3 feet of water in it.  I don’t believe they bought.

What ever happened to debtor’s prison?  Back in ancient times if you couldn’t pay your debt, you were put in jail or sold into slavery to pay it back.  Your wife and family were sold as slaves, too.  Consequences like that kept people out of trouble.

What was to stop someone from getting a 2nd mortgage at the bubble top for more than their equity was ever worth (and do it on multiple properties)?  Then take that money, liquify all their assets, put it in overseas banks and walk away?  You didn’t break a law, so they can’t arrest you.  Your credit is ruined, but if you take enough cash out, you don’t need credit?  The IRS may come after you, I guess, but stealing loan proceeds from a stupid banker is not a taxable event!  I kinda feel stupid for not buying a couple homes with zero down, cashing out a ton of fake equity, and handing over the keys.  Damn!

and don’t gimme this shit that the word “immigrant” is racist.  In fact, the most hardcore racists I have ever encountered are the original white residents of Orange County.  I recall years back in my single days dating this beautiful blond 20 yr old from OC.  She was adorable, I was very infatuated.  But she was a product of OC so she was racist to the core.  The cute thing about her is that she wasn’t really aware of it, she had just been raised that way.  She was telling me some story and she goes “and then this sand [the n word] goes..”  She must have seen my look so she responds: “oh, I don’t mean that in a prejudiced way, I just don’t know what else to call them.”  (picture a doe-eyed young blonde batting her eyes at this point). 

I dated another blondie from OC.  We were in line at “chester draws” (yes it was some years ago).  She sees two rather large african americans in line.  She asks me (too loudly) “they aren’t going to let them [the n word plural] in, are they?”  These guys were Shaquile O’Neal sized individuals so I cringed, figuring a beatdown was coming.  But luckily they were out of earshot.  I was curious as to the origin of her mindset so i asked her:  did you have some sort of bad experience with them.”  So she tells me the following: OK, look our high school (Valencia) was playing one of the schools with them but I still went to auditorium (like she was giving them an open mind).  These two were sitting there and they say “hey baby, slide on my rod.”  So then she looks at me and says “can you believe it?” 

anyhow, I have met others and so i can tell that Orange County might has well have been the Confederacy back in the 80s.

Not only that, but the realtors-developers have special small furnature designed just for these small spaces for the open houses just to trick you into thinking the space is larger than it is.  (like hollyweed)  Then you buy the palce, put in your Queen size bed and look around and there’s no space left in the room.  Wonder where it went?

I recall going to a kids restaurant with the one blondie:  it was dominated by non-whites.  So she looks around and tells me:  too many black heads!  (referring to hair color).  I am telling you, OC was like the deep South at one time.

http://www.lennar.com/CA/OrangeCounty/TheGables@ColumbusSquare/PlanFour.html

Is Lennar doing custom homes in VoC Alan?  This TRACT home with a basement there has been one of the few to sell well.

I thought this was an interesting link.  How does everyone think the following biases (sp?) apply to housing?  Or your own views?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

hahaha.  Yeah they do have a basement there.  Must be the only one in OC.

I just stopped by the Gables last week for the heck of it because I wanted to see the Plan 4 with the basement.
To say that downstairs would be every guy’s paradise would be an understatement.  I’d probably never go upstairs if I lived there. With the EI (everythings included) deal it comes with a built in kitchen and everything down there.  The model has a full on movie theater plus billiard room in the basement.  Too bad the place is in Columbus Square.  If you like checking out cool home plans, however, I recommend stopping by this one.

Alan says there are no basements in So Cal tract homes so there is no basement there CK.  You must be lying.  Take it back.
 

I find it interesting that Shiny showed up around the time AZDavidPhx went away.

Alan also showed up around the time AZDavidPhx left.  I can’t decide which one AZ morphed into.

SRS and SKF (ultrashort ETFs) have made me lots of money lately.  I’m not sure how much longer that party will last, but it was really nice over the past few months with the volatility.

I agree that homebuilder stocks will stabilize before housing.

Boys, boys, boys…

way too much koolaide.

since when are million dollar homes considered tract homes.

sure it’s a development that looks it could be a tract home but I would define anything designed to sell at 1M+ a custom home development.

WTF?  Tract homes are homes built in tracts, just like the Gables are.  You know, Plan 1, Plan 2, etc.  Phase 1, Phase 2, etc. 

How can they be custom homes when #1, the come in pre-determined floorplans, and #2, they are Lennar Everything Included which means you have very few options you can pay the builder to include?  EI basically means pick your flooring and you are done…

Villa Rosa at Woodbury, Mille Fleurs at Woodbury, Westbournce at VoC, Alexandria at VoC, Ciara at VoC, just to name a few, all larger TRACT homes designed to sell at $1M+.  Your insano logic would make them all “custom”.

Sometimes Alan, you can just say, “Hey there, whaddya know, I was wrong.  Thanks for the enlightenment.”  Whippin’ out some utter BS just serves to undermine the value in some of your more intelligent posts.

Incidentally, bank of america stock went under 40 bucks today - maybe not such a big deal what with a few homebuilders exploring new lows and citibank still dropping, but I found it interesting.

ok, i’ll admit that technically you are correct, identical homes in a single development are tract homes.

There, feel better about yourself.

I just don’t think the average American (not average Irvenite) thinks of million dollar homes when they think of tract houses.

Wikipedia defines tract housing as “multiple identical, or nearly-identical, homes are built to create a community. Tract housing may encompass dozens of square miles of areas”

Are there dozens of square miles of million dollar homes in Irvine?  To afford one of these palaces your income needs to be 200K/yr +.  According to the census data, there are about 60 households per zip code in Irvine with incomes that would qualify them to buy these homes, that’s a pretty small part of the market.  Exceptions can usually be found to any generalization.  I’ll change my statement to basements will not be found in tract homes in So Cal priced under $1M

Happy Now.

thanks for the info Qwerty and Diane…

I’m sure the government won’t mind calculating the average $ amount of debt forgiven per walkaway mortgagee - let’s say $50,000 - and giving me an equivalent tax deduction ?

Ipoplaya, why dont you offer them 950k, highball’em.

:mrgreen:

friendly as in: they will get over the 450k price faster. 

I was running out to do just that but saw that Alan admitted he was wrong basements in So Cal and I had a slight coronary.  Need to rest now, can’t make offer…

wrong about, wrong about.

Damn these fingers!

Wrong.  You’d have to make over 200k to afford one of these places NOW.  I’d bet the good majority of million dollar Irvine homes weren’t sold at a million bucks. 

Still, even in a year, there will be a lot of homes at a million.  There are plenty of houses in Irvine ‘worth’ (I use that term lightly) 2 million right now, so even if the market takes a huge hit (100%)....  well, I don’t think million dollar tract homes are going away anytime soon.

I don’t think *anyone* here is bearish enough to assume you’ll one day be able to pick up a nice estate on an acre sized lot with a tennis court for a million bucks.

I predict a lot of “hindsight bias” in the years to come.

Sorry ipolaya, I don’t censure for content unless it is defamatory or way over the line.

Yeah, I was just joshing anyway IR.  If you were censuring for pointless posts, it could consume your whole day…

You’ve given a very good idea.  I’d be better off taking out most of my 401K and burying it in the ground this year.  After all, even if I paid 8% on it, it’d be money I’d be paying myself.

We will be looking into borrowing from our 401Ks next week.

Thanks.

I was born in the deep South shineola, and there’s no way old OC can even compare.  The Klan was like the friggin’ Rotary Club there and instead of going to another restaurant in your example, that girl would have called her brothers and friends who would either A) wait outside to throw some full beer cans at those “black heads” or B) come inside to start a ruckus and roust them out.

My thought as well.  Another thought was how many neighbourhoods have been affected by the empty bubble syndrome, knock knock nobody home. And just maybe the “friendly neighbour ” is the start of a truly positive equity builder, good neighbours equal good value, to help get realestate back on track and away from all of this negative talk and karma.  That’s it we need positive real estate karma, how can we do that?  Ok, Ive got it lets get a realtor on to a high profile media show with the likes of Peter Schiff and then….........................! 
What?

Do the screen doors keep the cubanos at bay? 

765K for a house with dirty carpets!  Maybe they should borrow a carpet cleaner from one of the friendly neighbors and raise the price.

One caveat Tonye, just in case you had not considered.  You will likely be taxed twice on the earnings for any loan you take out.  Let’s say you park it in a money market at BOFA.  You get taxed on the interest you earn, paying back the loan with after-tax dollars, and then get taxed on the distribution down the line.  If the capital preservation far outpaces the extra taxation, it’s a win of course.

If your 401k doesn’t have good short-term investment options, it might make good sense.  Mine is at Fidelity, and the Fidelity Prime Fund is currently paying over 4%.  In my case, if I weren’t using the cash to shore up my down payment reserves, I’d park it all there and earn 4+% while the market tanks.

IR..

If something I write cases one of your posters (IPOP) to die from a coronary, did I commit murder?

IPOP… is your life insurance policy paid up?  I’ll have to try harder next time.

This is in Brevard not Miami,  no Cubanos here.  Or, very few.  They are drifting north.

Why would I want to keep them at Bay?