Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Where are you and where are you going?
bostonimproper
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by bostonimproper »

Yes, Southwest in my mind typically includes Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. The whole region (in addition to California agriculture) draws water from the Colorado River which has always had perpetually had issues with drought and has gotten bad enough in recent years that the federal government is stepping in to allocate water between the states (because, yknow, starting to be not enough to go around).

Quick Google Search yielded this Vox explainer: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23670 ... water-cuts

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Hm, I don't really want to buy a house outside of those states. Being a few hrs from Canyonlands and right next to the Wasatch range sounds spectacular. Maybe I'll have to go abroad after all. There is Boise or Spokane, but they probably have really heavy winters, and I wouldn't be surprised if they too are $$$$ now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwTq0EuqKCM

theanimal
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by theanimal »

New Mexico has some very cool areas and tons of great hiking with a fraction of the visitors.

I would advise against living in small town Utah. Almost all are predominantly Mormon and family oriented. You won't be explicitly discriminated against but you may have a really hard time making friends and finding a community. I have a friend who is very extroverted and generally has no problems making friends who has lived in a few small towns in southern Utah and has had this problem. My brother in SLC has not had any issues with that.

But again, these areas are extreme climates. My friend in Utah moved there explicitly for hiking and ends up staying inside during the day for most of the summer. She does hike at night but that is not the norm. If I were you I'd visit these areas in July and read up on droughts/water issues before committing to anything long term.

Salathor
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Salathor »

TopHatFox wrote:
Sat Apr 22, 2023 12:56 pm
@Salathor, I think 5 years makes more sense. I need to learn way more about types of homes, years of homes, home inspection, DIY remodeling/renovation, etc. What makes sense rn is to live in a room in Phoenix, Vegas, SLC, and western CO, and see which place I like the most. Denver seems like California at this point, so I think it's dead. But how do I get 200-300K out of equities from a taxable account when I'm ready to buy without incurring (likely) capital gains taxes?
Well, you only have taxes if you have gains. So it will be faster to do that and pay taxes than keep it in cash and avoid taxes. There's no avoiding taxes when you're making money; it's sometimes frustrating but it's just something worth considering, not something worth structuring your life to avoid in this type of situation. There CAN be tax avoidance scenarios, but they're longer term and for more ERE-style situations (Roth conversion ladders, etc), not for a situation like buying a house in a known timeframe.

Let's say you save 200k and it grows to 300k over the course of 5 years, and let's say your cap gains rate is 20%. You're going to pay 100k*.2 = 20k in taxes. That means you saved 200 and made 80; even having to pay 20k in taxes you're still way better off.

Conversely, interest returns from a savings account/CD counts as ordinary income, so it would be taxed much higher ANYWAY, and you'd have to pay the tax bill every year.

That said, if I had a known and set date for using the money (2 years, 18 months, etc.), I would probably still prefer a CD just because the money is guaranteed to be there. For the longer horizon though, I would prefer the investments since I trust them to return better than CDs over the long run.

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

@theanimal, not being able to hike during the entire year isn't too bad. That's probably just expecting too much. Here in FL, I tend not to stay outside too long from like May - August. It's something that can be solved by just renting your house during the peak months and using the money to hang out in Montana. Or just taking on inside hobbies, which is what I do 100% of the time here since there isn't much to do but kayak and go to the beach, outdoors-wise. The water scarcity issue does sound pretty serious tho if it's supposed to be a lifetime property. You guys are making it sound like it's better to just live in a room in perpetuity. :| I guess one solution is to only buy a house in cash after you've made it big in your startup lol.

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C40
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by C40 »

Yeah small Mormon towns are *WEIRD*. People are friendly to strangers, but in some ways it feels like, mmmm, sort of like being in 'The Truman Show'. That said, some of the small towns are not so Mormon. Like Escalante and Moab

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Maybe a house is just an expensive consumer good. Probably makes more sense to just invest everything in gaining skills + working + making startups and then buying the consumer good when/if you’re successful. I suppose I could just pay off my parent’s measly mortgage of 150k, when the same home is now 400-500k most mid to major cities :(

The other thing I’m wondering is if it’s reasonable to expect to live in a home for life. Lots of things can prevent that, like wild fires, storm damage, shitty new neighbors, property tax hikes, etc.

But yeah, seems like you already need to be rich to buy a house & actually pay off the mortgage. It’s looking like things that were once normal are now luxuries, and in order to access them, you need to be on higher & higher parts of the income scale.

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unemployable
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by unemployable »

I share many of your aspirations and consternations regarding buying a house. I can't tell you what your preferences should be, but over numerous housesits I've discovered I only use about 1,000 square feet of a house no matter how big it is. And hell is other people so roommates are out, but I'd consider a lockoff or duplex. Standalone houses generally aren't built that small anymore, so the primary market for this kind of arrangement would be 2/2 condos. You may want to look into manufactured or modular houses as well. They don't have to scream "trailer" and they're pretty common in the semi-rural West.

If you have a taxable (non-IRA) brokerage account, you may want to look into taking out a margin loan and using that to fund part of a house purchase. MMM discusses the idea here. IBKR tends to have the lowest rates which can be found here. Naturally this has risks but then all debt does. The advantages are that the rates tend to be lower than any mortgage you can find, the application process is nowhere near as lugubrious, you don't pay capital gains on what you don't sell, you're not required to have a down payment and the house transaction still looks like a "cash" purchase. The latter meaning your closing costs are lower, the house can't be defaulted on and perhaps you can get a better deal.

Not that you'd want to do this right now with both house prices and rates as high as they are — margin rates generally track short-term Treasuries. Also you'll want a plan for how you'll avoid margin calls if the value of your collateral declines — what you'd sell and how much of it, which could be assets outside the brokerage account. While you may not have the assets or conviction to do this right now, it may very well be something you can swing in a few years.

You can't borrow against assets in retirement accounts, other than taking a loan against an active 401k. Any use of funds in there will require pulling the money out with resultant taxes and/or penalties.

Concerning location, I came up with this list on slightly different criteria:

viewtopic.php?p=250893#p250893

Might be a good starting point for you, but do your own research, including spending some time in your targeted areas in person. As you probably know, I spend summers in the Colorado mountains and have been around most of the mountainous parts of the West by now. Right now I'm in the North Carolina mountains. After years out West, hiking here feels like just going for a walk, and some of my favorite places have been blown up in the last few years. But you can hike in a T-shirt year round. Summer conditions in the Western high country are four months (mid June to mid October) if you're lucky.

white belt
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by white belt »

TopHatFox wrote:
Sun Apr 23, 2023 12:44 pm
Maybe a house is just an expensive consumer good. Probably makes more sense to just invest everything in gaining skills + working + making startups and then buying the consumer good when/if you’re successful. I suppose I could just pay off my parent’s measly mortgage of 150k, when the same home is now 400-500k most mid to major cities :(

The other thing I’m wondering is if it’s reasonable to expect to live in a home for life. Lots of things can prevent that, like wild fires, storm damage, shitty new neighbors, property tax hikes, etc.
I've been following a long a bit and am also interested in purchasing a house in the next year or so. I think most of the advice that others have given is pretty good, specifically the recommendation about renting in a location for some period of time to make sure that it is a good fit for you.

One method, which I have done, is renting a room in a house with roommates and doing some maintenance/upkeep work in exchange for discounted rent. My arrangement has evolved into this because my landlord lives in a separate unit in the basement and is elderly. So there is physical labor that might take him several days and a ton of effort to do, which might take me a few hours and relatively minimal effort. For example, a few weeks ago I did about 2 hours worth of gardening for $40 off my rent. That hourly wage is much less than what I make in my salaryman job, however I enjoyed doing physical labor outdoors so I would've done it for free if I had been at my GF's house. There are probably other home improvement projects I can do in exchange for discounted rent.

The benefit of such an arrangement is that it basically allows you to "test drive" the lifestyle of living in a multi-unit fixer upper without taking on all of the risk of just going all-in on buying your own house. It pairs very well with working a remote programming job since you will always be home and it gives you a chance to break up the abstract knowledge work with some hands-on physical work. It also allows you to slowly build up your home improvement/maintenance skills because you will likely be learning with each project you take on. You might also be able to assist the landlord with finding tenants, showing the apartment, etc. Once you do that for a year in a location, you will have a very good idea if that lifestyle is a fit for you and also you will likely gain that critical local knowledge of that specific real estate market.

Edit: For my life, I've found it much better to only plan in 5-7 year chunks. Making "forever" plans is both extremely stressful and also futile because life will inevitably change.

take2
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by take2 »

I wouldn’t characterise buying a home as exclusively for the rich, or that renting a room in perpetuity is a better option.

What I would stress is that no matter how you cut it, it’s a six figure decision and should not be taken lightly. Most people (especially most Americans) tend to believe “renting is a waste of money” and “buying is always better”. The reality is you need to spend capital (usually financial) to live anywhere. Whether it’s social or financial capital, and within financial whether it’s renting or buying is a decision that you should make actively.

There are pros and cons to buying, and it changes over time - e.g. the longer your timeframe [generally] the more sense it makes to buy. However, you need to be sure you want to be there within the longer timeframe as selling physical real estate is not a quick process and indeed can be a real PIA if you need to get out quickly. Note that cuts both ways if you are a buyer and the seller needs cash quick.

There are winners and losers in physical real estate. By ensuring you like the area, and KNOW the area (e.g what have prices been like, where are they trending, how much will it cost you time/money wise to rectify issues, etc) you put yourself in the best position to succeed.

The first point should be to determine where you want to live. It’s good that you have an idea, but your geographical area is huge. Need to narrow down quite a bit more before you commit to buy, IF what you’re using to buy is a significant amount of your capital. Obviously if it’s a drop in the bucket you can do whatever you want without it affecting much.

How you narrow it down can be influenced by lifestyle, proximity to airports, cost of property, school districts, adjacency to nature, walkability, predominant culture (e.g. the Morman point made above which you would def not be into haha), etc.

However, don’t get dismayed; you have plenty of time to check places out and save money whilst you do it. If timeframe isn’t really that set (e.g if 5-ish years away) I personally would invest in equities. You’re young, no sense in being too conservative. However, none of this is financial advice.

take2
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by take2 »

TopHatFox wrote:
Sat Apr 22, 2023 12:56 pm

Are manufactured homes bad? I'd guess they are, cause they need to be light to transport, and light probably means shittier materials.

Is it still possible to buy a house that doesn't have an HOA? & What is a private development fee, like a gated community?
I’m not sure what you mean by manufactured. Most newer homes have elements of pre-fabrication. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it’s easier to maintain quality, etc in controlled facilities. If what you mean is mobile homes, then I’m not that sure, but would agree that lifespan is probably less. That’s also quite an aesthetic decision that I personally wouldn’t go for, but suspect it’s materially cheaper so may be a valid option. Self-built tiny homes would appeal to me more.

There are some interesting houses built out of 40ft shipping containers. However, I would gather your best bet is to find a house that’s 20-50 years old that needs some work vs any of those options, but may just be my ignorance speaking. Costs can be minimised when you’re open to a wide selection of property within a tight geographic area - e.g all within a place you know you want to be, but without much consideration for the place itself. This is where a lot of people get caught up - they want a certain style of home, or want it to be move-in-ready, etc. I don’t think you care about any of those things which is an advantage.

This is all easier btw once you’ve identified an area and start looking at properties. The differences will jump out at you when you compare 2-4 properties that are in the same place but with specific differences.

For sure there are lots of homes they don’t have HOAs. Same with gated communities.

take2
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by take2 »

Re: general location. I don’t really have anything to add as I’ve never been to any of those places, but I wouldn’t necessarily not buy due to the factors others have mentioned. You don’t need to view this as an “on/off” decision - i.e. if the area will be disastrous in 25 years and you think you want to be there for 10-15 buying may still make a lot of sense. Obviously the math changes if disaster is in 5 years.

Very few people buy and stay in the same home for the rest of their lives. You can keep it, buy another and rent it out, or sell when you want to move on. It’s all on a spectrum, and as long as you avoid pitfalls and think smartly (which you’re obviously capable of doing) you can use it to your advantage (instead of it being to your detriment). Key pitfalls again being clarity that the location is right, and commitment to enough of a timeframe that transaction costs and time don’t work against you. There are a plethora of other pitfalls, especially with reno projects, but those can be solved with enough time/energy/skills/money.

You may also be able to find a dirt cheap home in the middle of nowhere where the math simply works out that you can take a view without committing a material amount of your capital. I don’t think that lifestyle would really fit in with the rest of your life, but it’s all a possibility.

Salathor
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Salathor »

take2 wrote:
Mon Apr 24, 2023 1:57 am
Most people (especially most Americans) tend to believe “renting is a waste of money” and “buying is always better”. The reality is you need to spend capital (usually financial) to live anywhere.
This is what's hard for me right now. In the area we moved, the cheapest oldest houses (80+ years old, 900 sq ft, 2 bd 1 ba) are 650,000+. Meanwhile, they can be rented for 32,000 per year. The rent is less than the debt service alone on a standard mortgage, give or take. Meanwhile, the home owner has to pay taxes, insurance, maintenance, and doesn't have the investment returns on the 650k as they are tied up in the house.

I don't want to be a reactionary "houses are too expensive right now" guy, but when rents are so low compared to home prices I just don't see myself buying in the near term.

theanimal
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by theanimal »

If you haven't already, you should check out @AE's journal who is going through the same search for a new location right now and recently visited many of the places you have expressed interest in.
viewtopic.php?p=272419#p272419

MidsizeLebowski
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by MidsizeLebowski »

I’ve lived in Vegas as well as adjunct to Tucson. I think N AZ a la Flagstaff or Prescott seems in line with what you’re thinking, Las Cruces NM also comes to mind. Conservative~ish but nature appreciating. The balance between hard working healthy population and leave you alone to rent RV in driveway is the dichotomous situation here methinks.

Climate crisis at a real level seems more so migrant related being near the border, the U.S. will never let PhX die even if it cannibalizes itself pumping water from snowmelt on Olympus. Is it right? Certainly not, but what we might consider hardship is still absolute luxury for rural chihuahuan desert townships.

How do you feel about a large population of Central American climate refugees becoming your neighbors in the SW? What makes a good life for THF seems the primary question, you’ll certainly physically survive any climate concerns. Great advice here wrt renting to investigate with minimal friction. May the remote work be yours in short THF!

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

MAY 2023

Woo hoo biches, after a year of studying code, I was able to land a wfh coding + mining geology job (mining data analysis using code)! Just sent over the negotiation email to the offer. It pays double what my old wfh gis job paid! They said I can directly get on the dev team making the software in a year too! Looks like things are finally turning around. Coding is where it’s at.

Anyone have any tips on how to succeed at such a job? I wanna do my best to never let it go 😅

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Slevin
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Slevin »

TopHatFox wrote:
Sun Apr 30, 2023 11:46 am
MAY 2023

Woo hoo biches, after a year of studying code, I was able to land a wfh coding + mining geology job (mining data analysis using code)! Just sent over the negotiation email to the offer. It pays double what my old wfh gis job paid! They said I can directly get on the dev team making the software in a year too! Looks like things are finally turning around. Coding is where it’s at.
Congrats!!! Doubling your salary must feel absolutely amazing!

And also I would lightly hazard you to remain a bit cautious about legitimately moving over to the dev team in a year. All promises made by the the people hiring you (I.e. doing a “sales” role for the job they are filling) that are not made contractually are not binding or real. You might work at one of the “nice and genuine” places where you will actually transition to becoming a software engineer, but if I had a dime for every time one of my employers told a software-engineer-adjacent employee they could become a software engineer and then didn’t let them, I could probably go out to a pretty nice dinner.

So be open and persistent with your superiors that this is the role you want to move to in a year, and if all you seem to be getting is empty promises (and not a transition plan where you are taking on easy tickets from that dev team to get you up to speed), look to leverage that position for the next dev role at a new company.

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: Beep Boop Codes!

Post by TopHatFox »

@Slevin, yeah, I thought of that as well. I suppose either way I can just change the job title on my resume and apply to a full dev role elsewhere. The actual role I got (Implementation Specialist) has some coding like Python and SQL, so I can probably sell it as a dev role during an interview. I thought of maybe asking for a title change to make it sound more dev-like, but I’m not sure what title to ask for. Any ideas?

The company is growing and serving an in-demand industry, so it’s less likely they’ll reneg. Either way, I’m working on my coding startup, and now I have remote income to continue doing so. If anything, the non-technical aspect of the job might give me more mental bandwidth to work on my own technical projects.

————

From what I gathered, Implementation Specialists must help integrate the company’s software offerings with what each client is currently using to help the clients solve problems. It’ll probably be useful to me as a startup founder too, cause I’ll learn how software gets sold and implemented. I’d also learn all about the software before actually developing it (if they do put me on the dev team). I suppose we’ll see how this plays out; one knows nothing about a company before actually working there for at least a few months.

macg
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by macg »

Congratulations!

Personally, I wouldn't worry about your job title right now, if at all. Job titles vary so much from job to job, even if they are doing the same thing, so it's something I've never worried about. Heck, on my resume there's been times I've used my own version of the job title, because the "official" one made no sense. The tasks that you are doing matter, not the title the company puts on it.

Tips:
  • Get yourself a system to keep you organized, that keeps you on top of your tasks. I use GTD (there's a large thread about it in the forum), but use whatever works for you
  • Think simplification and automation all the time. I'm not sure what non-coding work you'll be doing, but always look to improve things. Have a 20 step procedure to do something? See if you can create a python script to do it. Makes it more consistent, shows that you have an automation mindset, makes your life easier, plus it's fun.
  • Check out the AI coding helpers that have been popping up. I've been playing with GitHub CoPilot... It doesn't think for me, but it does save a ton of typing in some cases. It's like advanced auto-fill - and it seems to have all the stack overflow answers in its knowledge, so might save some googling. Worth it to keep in the loop about these advances, it will become a hot commodity just to be a person who can use them efficiently.
Above all, stay flexible, learn what you can, and have fun! Best of luck!

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

@macg, so it's totally okay to just be an Implementation Specialist if I ultimately want to be a Software Engineer in ~1 year? Also, I've noticed that C#/.NET are huge. So many things were built on it. Gonna have to study for it like crazy.

The original offer was 70K/yr, I asked for 80K during the counter, but the COO said 70K/yr is good, cause it's an introductory role to learn the software for the company before deciding whether to specialize in data analysis, coding, or management. The job's also fully remote, and apparently fully remote roles earn a bit less on average. He did say we can review the salary after 6 months. All of this sound normal?

I think I like the company and the executives seem trustworthy. They're at least technical in their background, not just marketing/sales types. I hope they're legit, but for now I'm just gonna accept the job and do a good job. I'll find out in a year, so it's kinda irrelevant now.

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