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Home equity as % of net worth?

6,461 Views | 56 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by infinity ag
Ed Carter
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AG
Curious everyone's thoughts on what a healthy ratio of home equity to net worth is considered? Im mainly looking at it in the context of paying one's house off.

For simple math, if someone has a net worth of $1 million and has a$450,000 home that is completely paid off, 45% of that person's net worth is tied up in their primary home. At what point does the ratio get unhealthy and actually make it a little dangerous to completely pay ones house off?
mwp02ag
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As a REI, that is dead equity. If you can go lock up 70-80% if that equity in 30 year debt st today's interest rates and use that money to buy cash flow SFR homes, why wouldn't ya?

Keep your money moving!!
Casey TableTennis
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I've never thought about it in exactly that way. However, I do think about overall debt to equity (D/E) ratio.
A family would be well served to invest and treat debt like a corporation. Corporations commonly employ leverage to optimize the capital structure and risk/return. Unlike a corporation, a family has a finite life. Also, with generally less capital in a family unit, a lower D/E (relative to corporations) is generally advisable. Ignoring personal preferences, I want to see that trending toward ~20% around retirement age. Obviously younger folks will have a higher ratio, in general.

If there are strong debt attitudes, liquidity concerns, high after-tax cost of debt, etc... getting to 0% may make reasonable sense.
diehard03
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Quote:

45% of that person's net worth is tied up in their primary home. At what point does the ratio get unhealthy and actually make it a little dangerous to completely pay ones house off?

I don't know how it's danger to ever pay off your primary residence. You have to live somewhere.
cgh1999
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Cash flow and liquidity are way more important than equity.

Paying off your home is fantastic, but it won't pay your bills if you lose your job.
deadbq03
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mwp02ag said:

As a REI, that is dead equity. If you can go lock up 70-80% if that equity in 30 year debt st today's interest rates and use that money to buy cash flow SFR homes, why wouldn't ya?

Keep your money moving!!
1) Not having to pay mortgage or rent is pretty nice. As mentioned above, you gotta live somewhere.

2) Property values can have big gains if you're smart (and/or lucky).
AgCPA95
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AG
deadbq03 said:

mwp02ag said:

As a REI, that is dead equity. If you can go lock up 70-80% if that equity in 30 year debt st today's interest rates and use that money to buy cash flow SFR homes, why wouldn't ya?

Keep your money moving!!
1) Not having to pay mortgage or rent is pretty nice. As mentioned above, you gotta live somewhere.



There are a lot of factors at play including the volatility of your real estate markets, amounts of leverage, etc. but this is a mindset shift from pay off all debt and save your way to wealth approach to the "keep your money moving" approach like the poster stated above. The "nice" feeling of paying off your mortgage at these interest rate levels gives me anxiety. I get the that same happy feeling by knowing my borrowed money has been invested in several additional rental homes in slow/steady markets that cash flow and make a decent cash on cash return on my down payment. My money is now working for me in the background building wealth unlike the dead equity in a mortgage free house.


diehard03
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Quote:

Cash flow and liquidity are way more important than equity.

Paying off your home is fantastic, but it won't pay your bills if you lose your job.

Having a paid off home certainly distances you from the wolf at the door if this happens. Keeping the lights on is much easier than keeping the lights AND mortgage paid.
AggieFrog
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AG
My home equity is only 11% of net worth. Even if fully paid off, it would only be about 25%. I don't consider my home an investment, though. It's a place to live and I always just hope to break even on it - appreciation is just gravy.
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mwp02ag
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deadbq03 said:

mwp02ag said:

As a REI, that is dead equity. If you can go lock up 70-80% if that equity in 30 year debt st today's interest rates and use that money to buy cash flow SFR homes, why wouldn't ya?

Keep your money moving!!
1) Not having to pay mortgage or rent is pretty nice. As mentioned above, you gotta live somewhere.

2) Property values can have big gains if you're smart (and/or lucky).
Let's use round numbers and say they pull out 70% of the equity at today's rates. You could take that $315k interest free (edit: this should say tax fee) and buy 10 turn key, professionally managed homes in multiple steady markets from Jason Hartman that would cash flow $300/m each.


1) Having other people pay your mortgage is even better!

2) I agree, I'd rather have 10 properties growing steady, being paid for by someone else, with the tax advantages of income property.

TwoMarksHand
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AG
It is an interesting discussion. I'm at 12.7% of Home Equity in my Net Worth. But have a lot of years to go to pay off my house. Total Debt to Gross Income ratio is at 18.8%.
cgh1999
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AG
I have several friends who are commission only with paid off houses. When the financial crisis hit and their income dried up completely, they regretted paying the house off completely.

Paying it off completely is good, but not if you don't have sufficient liquidity to manage through a crisis.
Ragoo
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cgh1999 said:

Cash flow and liquidity are way more important than equity.

Paying off your home is fantastic, but it won't pay your bills if you lose your job.
it certainly would open up your options to the kind of job that allows you to break even. Unless you suck at your job losing it is practically impossible unless it is a ripple effect of other market issues. Meaning, it may be more difficult to find equal employment.

Leverage is good, but also a part of a broader risk profile.
Tumble Weed
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Even though I have made money in real estate, my stocks consistently outperform.

I tell people to stick with what they are good at. If that is real estate, then that is fine. Stocks, then go for it. Having a home that is paid for makes you feel good, but at the end of the day it is still about numbers.

I quit aggressively paying off loans because of my rate of return, and my current interest rate on my house.
62strat
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cgh1999 said:

Cash flow and liquidity are way more important than equity.

Paying off your home is fantastic, but it won't pay your bills if you lose your job.
Bills?? You mean like the mortgage? hah. The mortgage probably makes up more than 50% of most families' bills. It does in our household.

With no mortgage, our '6 month' living expenses in savings becomes 14-15 if not more.

By month 3 with no job, I'd start cutting unnecessary stuff like a maid, hobbies, gym and restaurants.
By month 8-10, I'd cut cable, possibly even consider switching cars if I was paying on them.

Now my 'bills' are down to basically utilities ($250) Cell/internet ($150).. Hell that's about it isn't it? $350? If still no job, I just start putting that on a credit card and let it ride. Min. payment, $25.


Point being, your assumption of a paid off mortgage not paying the bills is a strawman argument. The mortgage IS the main bill a family has to pay, and the one bill they are afraid of not being able to pay if laid off.

mwp02ag
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AG
It's really a mindset shift. You're way is the way 97% of the world will approach it, always in the hands of some one elses plan for you. My way, you control your time 100% and don't ever have to worry about making payments. That's the way the top 3% look at it. I know, I only recently found this, but I am proof of concept.

I know it's hard to believe that financial freedom is that obtainable, but it truly is for anyone. For people like the OP, the 10 property purchase I mentioned above can be purchased and cash flowing in a month.
cgh1999
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I don't disagree. Any comment I make is a generalization because I don't know your financial situation or maturity which would allow you (and your spouse) to cut necessary expenses.

In the specific case I'm thinking of, a guy had a great job that was commission only. He had a paid off house. And two kids in college. After 6 months of no income, cash flow was tight. He had assets he could sell, but he specifically told me that he regretted having a fully paid off house instead of extra cash in the bank. Once his income returned, we put a home equity line of credit in place which allowed him access to that equity if a similar situation were to arise.
deadbq03
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mwp02ag said:

deadbq03 said:

mwp02ag said:

As a REI, that is dead equity. If you can go lock up 70-80% if that equity in 30 year debt st today's interest rates and use that money to buy cash flow SFR homes, why wouldn't ya?

Keep your money moving!!
1) Not having to pay mortgage or rent is pretty nice. As mentioned above, you gotta live somewhere.

2) Property values can have big gains if you're smart (and/or lucky).
Let's use round numbers and say they pull out 70% of the equity at today's rates. You could take that $315k interest free (edit: this should say tax fee) and buy 10 turn key, professionally managed homes in multiple steady markets from Jason Hartman that would cash flow $300/m each.


1) Having other people pay your mortgage is even better!

2) I agree, I'd rather have 10 properties growing steady, being paid for by someone else, with the tax advantages of income property.


And your ratio of equity to debt would be hot garbage.

This is really an issue of a risk aversion, and that's simply a matter of personal choice. There are plenty of bad news stories from people who leveraged their assets in order to pursue more active investments and failed.

For me, I'd rather have low/no debt when the economy crashes and I lose my job. If that means I'm missing out on opportunity now, I'm willing to live with that.
mavsfan4ever
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AG
You are assuming that the loss of job happens when the house is fully paid off. But what if someone aggressively starts paying off their house, they get the mortgage down from $600,000 to $200,000 in a few years, and then they lose their income? I can promise you that they would much rather have that $400,000 in some sort of liquid accounts. they still have to pay their mortgage every month, and can only access that $400,000 if they sell their house. That is a big downside to paying off the house early in my opinion.

And there just isn't a huge upside in my opinion. You are correct that if you fully pay it off, your expenses will be much less if you happen to lose your job/income. But if you don't pay it off, you will have a ton more liquid money at your disposable. To me, that's basically 6 in one hand and half a dozen in the other.

With low interest rates, the benefit of paying off the house as opposed to investing the money in other avenues just doesn't seem to make much sense.
deadbq03
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Good points.

I'd offer that people who are paying down their notes and don't refinance or recast (no one seems to know about recasting) their mortgages are doing it wrong. In your example, the mortgage bill should've been cut in half by that point if they had been managing it well.
Thriller
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I think there's two different conversations going on here.

1. Not paying off your mortgage in order to invest in incoming producing assets (real estate) by taking on additional debt to leverage your liquid cash that could have gone to the mortgage but is now producing income. That income is limited by debt service on those properties, though.

2. Not paying off your mortgage in order to have liquid cash (taxable brokerage, other non-tax sheltered accounts).

Those are different risk profiles. I don't know that I'm a fan of taking on the risk in scenario 1., It only takes 1 domino to fall to start a chain reaction that could ruin you.

I'm really torn on the payoff/don't payoff scenario. We'll be debt free, except the mortgage next Friday. We have the option to start rapidly accumulating (scenario 2), pay down the mortgage (which increases net worth but not liquidity - so that may be an academic exercise), or start looking at income producing alternatives.

Right now I think I'm leaning towards just making one extra mortgage payment per year. Haven't decided on the rest yet.

62strat
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mavsfan4ever said:

You are assuming that the loss of job happens when the house is fully paid off. But what if someone aggressively starts paying off their house, they get the mortgage down from $600,000 to $200,000 in a few years, and then they lose their income? I can promise you that they would much rather have that $400,000 in some sort of liquid accounts. they still have to pay their mortgage every month, and can only access that $400,000 if they sell their house. That is a big downside to paying off the house early in my opinion.


good point, but the person said 'paying off your home is great, but can't pay the bills'. So I was comparing the situation of the house paid off vs one that is not. Paying off =/= paying towards

So yes, I agree, 'the extra money you to pay towards a mortgage can't be used to pay the bills'.

In that situation, you could refinance and get that house payment from a 600k loan to a 200k loan, which is a huge reduction.


diehard03
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Quote:

In that situation, you could refinance and get that house payment from a 600k loan to a 200k loan, which is a huge reduction.

Can you get that money out after you lose your job?
cgh1999
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diehard03 said:

Quote:

In that situation, you could refinance and get that house payment from a 600k loan to a 200k loan, which is a huge reduction.

Can you get that money out after you lose your job?

Not at an interest rate you'd be happy to pay.
TXTransplant
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mavsfan4ever said:

You are assuming that the loss of job happens when the house is fully paid off. But what if someone aggressively starts paying off their house, they get the mortgage down from $600,000 to $200,000 in a few years, and then they lose their income? I can promise you that they would much rather have that $400,000 in some sort of liquid accounts. they still have to pay their mortgage every month, and can only access that $400,000 if they sell their house. That is a big downside to paying off the house early in my opinion.

And there just isn't a huge upside in my opinion. You are correct that if you fully pay it off, your expenses will be much less if you happen to lose your job/income. But if you don't pay it off, you will have a ton more liquid money at your disposable. To me, that's basically 6 in one hand and half a dozen in the other.

With low interest rates, the benefit of paying off the house as opposed to investing the money in other avenues just doesn't seem to make much sense.


This is where I am. I have enough cash right now to pay off about 65% of my mortgage balance, and it would just take a few years of monthly payments past that to pay it off entirely. But I'm just not comfortable sinking that much of my emergency fund (which, granted, is probably bigger than it should be) in my house. My mortgage payment is only $1500/month, and even if I pay it off, I'd still owe the equivalent of about $800/month in insurance and property taxes. I've dealt with unexpected job loss before, and knowing you have enough in savings to pay your mortgage for more than six months is huge peace of mind.
deadbq03
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AG
I don't think anyone would advocate trading an emergency fund for a paid-off house.

But if I was in the OP's scenario and assuming a decent portion of the assets are relatively liquid for emergencies (which would be a nice fact to know), then having a paid off house isn't dumb. Sure, it isn't as shrewd as using it to invest elsewhere if you've got the risk tolerance to do that. Age would certainly be a huge factor as well.

But I'd say unequivocally that it's unwise to use that equity and then get $2-4MM in debt to gobble up as many rental properties as you can.
TXTransplant
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deadbq03 said:

I don't think anyone would advocate trading an emergency fund for a paid-off house.

But if I was in the OP's scenario and assuming a decent portion of the assets are relatively liquid for emergencies (which would be a nice fact to know), then having a paid off house isn't dumb. Sure, it isn't as shrewd as using it to invest elsewhere if you've got the risk tolerance to do that. Age would certainly be a huge factor as well.

But I'd say unequivocally that it's unwise to use that equity and then get $2-4MM in debt to gobble up as many rental properties as you can.


I refer to all of my available cash savings as my emergency fund. I'm sure there are just as many differing opinions on how big an emergency fund should be.

Since I don't have enough cash to pay off the balance on my house in its entirety, my instinct is to keep that cash liquid. Even if I took 75% of my available cash to pay down my mortgage and left myself a 6-ish month emergency fund, I just don't see the point, since I would be depleting my cash on hand but still have a mortgage to pay.
62strat
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TXTransplant said:

deadbq03 said:

I don't think anyone would advocate trading an emergency fund for a paid-off house.

But if I was in the OP's scenario and assuming a decent portion of the assets are relatively liquid for emergencies (which would be a nice fact to know), then having a paid off house isn't dumb. Sure, it isn't as shrewd as using it to invest elsewhere if you've got the risk tolerance to do that. Age would certainly be a huge factor as well.

But I'd say unequivocally that it's unwise to use that equity and then get $2-4MM in debt to gobble up as many rental properties as you can.

Since I don't have enough cash to pay off the balance on my house in its entirety, my instinct is to keep that cash liquid. Even if I took 75% of my available cash to pay down my mortgage and left myself a 6-ish month emergency fund, I just don't see the point, since I would be depleting my cash on hand but still have a mortgage to pay.
I agree. The only situation that makes sense is when you have enough cash to 'pay off' your mortgage. Not pay it DOWN, but pay it OFF.

now you have no mortgage, and your savings can grow again at a much faster rate.
deadbq03
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AG
6 month would be the conservative end of the opinions on emergency savings, so if you're above that, you probably ought to do something with it, unless you're in an industry where people are frequently out of work longer than that. Even with 6 months, you probably ought to consider other strategies for saving that emergency fund other than straight cash.

Regarding the home, you could consider getting a recast after making a large principle payment and then your mortgage payments would go down. The fees for a recast are much much cheaper than refinancing, and you get to keep your same interest rate (might not be a good thing, if not, then refinancing might be better). You'll probably have to talk to a real person to get info on a recast. Banks don't advertise them because it's basically a losing deal for them, but if your mortgage is a normal federally-backed mortgage then you can do it... you'll just have to ask. May still not make sense to do it, but it's an option.
mwp02ag
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Man I'm in an attic inspecting a home but every single home in that link requires at least 20% down if I remember correctly. They are all in very stable, work force house type areas with steady approciation and job growth.

Your turning 450k home from dead equity to 10, $90k homes with 20% equity and professionally remodeled and managed homes with tenants in place by closing that provide $2-3k a month in passive income and 20% ROI if I remember correctly.

I don't think it's faor to say the debt:equity is bad unless you're comparing to the zero note, which is actually still a liability IMO.
deadbq03
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AG
Even "good debt" is bad if you have too much.

Best of luck, it's a heck of a gamble.
TXTransplant
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deadbq03 said:

6 month would be the conservative end of the opinions on emergency savings, so if you're above that, you probably ought to do something with it, unless you're in an industry where people are frequently out of work longer than that. Even with 6 months, you probably ought to consider other strategies for saving that emergency fund other than straight cash.

Regarding the home, you could consider getting a recast after making a large principle payment and then your mortgage payments would go down. The fees for a recast are much much cheaper than refinancing, and you get to keep your same interest rate (might not be a good thing, if not, then refinancing might be better). You'll probably have to talk to a real person to get info on a recast. Banks don't advertise them because it's basically a losing deal for them, but if your mortgage is a normal federally-backed mortgage then you can do it... you'll just have to ask. May still not make sense to do it, but it's an option.


Yeah, I'm ultra conservative when it comes to this. About a 1/3 of it is in an investment fund, another ~40% is in a 1 year CD, and about 15% is actually my HSA (also invested). I've got a kiddo going off to college in <5 years, so the plan is to use some of that excess savings to get him a car and help pay for school.

I forgot about the mortgage recast. Up until a couple of years ago, I didn't even think that was allowed. Pretty sure I heard about it here.
deadbq03
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Man, with a kid going to school, I'd just hold onto the mortgage and plan to bleed money. I'm not looking forward to that day. School costs are dumb these days.
MemphisAg1
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I've seen this movie before, twice. I distinctly remember before the '08 crash a long-haired "genius" on CNBC claiming that he already had 10 houses and wished he could borrow more money to buy more housing because it was the GREATEST INVESTMENT EVER! Well, **** happened, his "guaranteed" income stream dried up, and I never saw or heard from him again.

Almost 10 years earlier, I also remember the "geniuses" telling us that it was THE NEW ECONOMY, and the old rules didn't matter. You should buy even more stocks today because they're always going up, and everybody gets rich, and..... oops, not so fast... the dot com bubble burst in a spectacular manner. Lots of millionaires evaporated overnight.

Not saying that prudent debt management isn't part of a balanced portfolio -- because some leverage can help maximize overall returns -- but those that assume things will always be rosy and load up on debt are the ones that eventually regret it.

During both crashes I've observed in my lifetime, the crying, wailing, and gnashing of the teeth didn't come from those with their homes paid off. Instead it was those who were leveraged beyond their ability to pay during a brutal downturn.
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