I won’t even invest in Texas. Europe is nice place to visit. But not attractive for investors on this forum. Mexico makes more sense. Can even drive to there. You buy we will come visit. I have only been to Seville, where Columbus is buried. Beatiful. But for year round beach weather Mexico or Hawaii is a better bet
wait til I tell you about my North Carolina Raleigh-Durham/Emerald Isle double dipper plan… I’ll save that one for next time… more for you guys to hate!
this forum should be called EveryPossibleTopicInTheWorldExceptRealEstateAnywhereOutsideTheBayArea.com
I have done well investing in Sacramento and Tahoe. Done well in Texas, Ventura and Florida also with newly constructed self storage. But for self management it is best to stay one hour from home.
The big problems with foreign investment.
Language barrier
Currency
Management
Taxes
Lack of local knowledge
I would want a very high rate of return to compensate for these issues.
When it comes to buying a house, I recommend being extremely practical.
How long are you going to stay?
How much will stability and quality of living will it add to the overall happiness of your household?
What does your wife think?
Do you really think moving every couple of year is the best way to build muscle, or should you just buy a gym membership?
Can you afford it the lifestyle you want if you buy? If not, what’s your long-term retirement savings plan?
For us:
We have stability (whether real or fake)–I can finally settle in, make long-term friends, and long-term plans. Before, I was always looking at where we might move to as well as wasting time keeping up with the RE market. If I don’t check in on these forums for a month to do something else, now, it’s not a big deal.
Because we were able to buy larger than what we had, every kid has a room, and we have a guest room with its own bath. The move was strictly better. On top of that, we’ve had maybe one fight in 5 months. Before we were constantly stressed about whether we were staying here or leaving and about the lower quality of living we’d rented into because of our landlady’s lack-of-care for our place. I mean, we’ve gone from a happiness level of 4-5 to 8-9. Also, we can now budget for things like trips because saving for a down payment was always a priority–and I never knew how much we’d need. But now, it’s done, so I can move on to retirement vs. vacation travel instead of down payment vs. vacation.
I thought we should settle and buy
Good grief, get a gym membership. We paid for movers, and it was worth every dollar.
For us, this is a large part of our retirement savings.
No, it’ll be a loooong time. BUT now that we’re done moving, I can go get a job. That was another thing–I knew that moving would pull out a couple of months of my time, so I didn’t want to try to take a job on top of mom+move or worse yet take a job then leave town. Now I’m free to work. And I don’t have to spend my weekends looking at houses.
“California is by far the most aggressive [state] in figuring out how quickly, how cute you are with these changes,” said Vicken Ekmekjian, a top San Francisco wealth adviser, who has had several soon-to-IPO clients recently approach him about residency changes. “They’re relentless. They’ll get you.”
Money managers, tax lawyers, and executives describe a dragnet: California tax collectors will review utility, credit card, cellphone, and even highway-toll collection and doctor’s records to try and determine where someone actually lives, even if they claim to be domiciled in a haven like Austin, Texas, or Miami, Florida.
The state of California treats capital gains just like any other income, levying a 13.3 percent state tax on sales of stock.
In most nations such as Singapore, is ZERO, for both nation and state. Liberals are very unreasonable, they want grab all the money they can to… you’re right, help the undocumented immigrants!
Well, those poor Uber workers could have stayed in Iowa. Why did they come to California in the first place? And worse yet, bitch about it after they’ve gotten rich?
They took the risk to join startup! Is reasonable to tax some but state tax has been too excessive and for dubious causes. Is not for nation building, infrastructure building, nurturing nascent industry or education. Is for what? To help illegal immigrants!
On the one hand, these executives took an enormous risk when they decided to join young, likely-to-fail startups for the ultimate Silicon Valley currency: equity. Some have spent as long as a decade helping to build billion-dollar businesses while sitting on winnings they couldn’t enjoy. Should California really be taxing newly liquid startup stock just like it’s any other new, risk-free cash? Wouldn’t that discourage innovation?
The reasons provided to keep California safe are not enough for those high taxes. Singapore is way more safe and didn’t tax much. The excessively high state tax rate is because of dubious causes not listed in the article.
CA has been taxing heavily and those damn startups keep setting up shop here.
So CA tax the way it does because it can. Because the network effect and the system in place is so strong here. Why didn’t Uber and AirBnB start in Austin?
The proper way to complain about the bill is before you have finished eaten the food. You can’t go on a date with supermodel in McDonald’s. Things are expensive for a reason.