BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 467: Switching Jobs, Becoming a Landlord, and Investing vs. Paying Off Debt

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Switching jobs is a HUGE career decision that impacts not only your finances but also your schedule, quality of life, and more. When is changing jobs the right move, and what are the different fa...ctors at play? Today, our hosts will show you what to do when faced with such a big decision! Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Money podcast! In this episode, Mindy and Kyle are fielding some of your top questions. In addition to changing jobs, they discuss 401(k) investing strategies—including how to handle accounts from previous employers and how to set up your own solo 401(k)! They also talk about what to expect as a first-time landlord and all of the different tax benefits and liabilities that come along with the job. Plus, what you should do if your tax professional makes a dreaded error. Finally, they offer some timely investing advice that will help you navigate the current economic climate. Amidst inflation and high mortgage rates, should you invest in the stock market, pay off your debts, or go another route entirely? Stay tuned to find out! If you want Mindy and Kyle to answer a money question, you can submit a question here or post it in the Money Facebook Group! In This Episode We Cover Leaving your job for a higher-paying one (and when it’s best to stay put!) How to handle your old 401(k) accounts and set up a solo 401(k) Tax benefits and liabilities you MUST know as a first-time landlord What to do when your tax professional makes a COSTLY error Investing in the stock market versus paying off debt (and how to get the best rate of return) And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group BiggerPockets Forums Finance Review Guest Onboarding Join BiggerPockets for FREE Mindy on BiggerPockets Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Apply to Be a Guest on The Money Show Podcast Talent Search! Money Moment What to Do Before You Quit the High-Pay & Benefits of Corporate World Finance Friday: I Want to Cash Out My 401k Early, Should I? Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-467   Interested in learning more about today's sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email us: moneymoment@biggerpockets.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome, my dear listeners to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, where we answered listener questions today. We're going to discuss 401Ks, being a first-time landlord, potentially switching jobs, taxes, and investment strategies. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen. And with me today is a CFP, but not your CFP, Kyle Mast. Hello, Mindy. How you doing? I am doing fantastic today, Kyle. It's so lovely to see you again. It's good to be here. And these are. These are always fun shows where we get to kind of go through some questions here that just come off of the groups that Bigger Pockets has. And hopefully they can give some insight to a whole bunch of different people as we go through them.
Starting point is 00:00:41 Today, Kyle and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else. To introduce you to every money story, because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you're starting. Whether you're looking to retire early, travel the world, go on to make some big time investments like, real estate or just start your own business, we'll help you reach your goals and get money out of the way so that you can launch yourself towards whatever your dreams are. Now it's time for the segment of our show called The Money Moment, where we share a money hack, tip, or trick to help you on your financial journey.
Starting point is 00:01:16 Today's Money Moment is provided by Inago. Find out why Inago is the number one rated property management software. As an exclusive offer to BiggerPock's listeners, you'll get $25 for using Inago at Inago.com slash Bigger. Pockets. That's I-N-N-A-G-O-com slash bigger pockets. Today's money moment is think about creating your own gym. With the holidays coming up and inevitably the post-holidays, you may want to get in shape during the new year.
Starting point is 00:01:45 Gym activity is actually up 34% in January and the majority of sign-ups happened during that time. A good portion of people sign up, go for about a month and then just continue paying the monthly gym bill without actually attending. Sound familiar? Making a home gym may not be a bad idea at all if this is you. Get some gym mats, a TRX strap, dumbbells, or even a function trainer or treadmill. That could be cheaper long term and will help you stick to your goals if it's readily available at home. Remember, you can use Facebook Marketplace to score many of these products for a bargain. Do you have a money tip for us? Email MoneyMoment at BiggerPockets.com. All right, before we answer your questions, let's take a quick break. is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going,
Starting point is 00:02:41 and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code Pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking.
Starting point is 00:03:09 You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code Pockets at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at Monarch.com code Pock. I love Matt, said no one ever. Nobody starts a business thinking, you know what would make this more fun?
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Starting point is 00:05:56 Inago has you covered. They offer a seamless interface and support representatives to assist you every step of the way. Join thousands of satisfied landlords and start streamlining your property management tasks today with Inago. As an exclusive offer to Bigger Pockets listeners, you'll get $25 for using Inago. Visitinago.com slash Bigger Pockets to get started. That's I-N-N-A-G-O-com slash BiggerPockets. And we're back. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another show where we answer your listener questions.
Starting point is 00:06:28 If you would like to apply, please go to BiggerPockets.com slash money question or post in our Facebook group, which is found at Facebook.com slash groups slash BP money. This first question comes from Brian, who posted in our Facebook group. I have a 401k with my previous employer, but I am now selling. employed. I may want to borrow against the 401k in the future. Do I need to move my 401k to a new solo 401k or something else in order to borrow from it? What other interesting ways can I use this account as an investment vehicle? Kyle? Oh boy, a bunch of moving parts here. This is a fun one. I'm going to try not to get too nerdy on it. With a previous employer, you can't take a loan on it. The way
Starting point is 00:07:16 401k loans work is they want to be able to use your current employment and your current pay stub to make payments back to your 401k loan. So if you already have a loan when you leave an employer, that's something to really be mindful of because a lot of times that comes due within a certain amount of time from when you leave an employer and you need to be able to pay that back. So in this case, if you want to borrow from your 401K funds at some point in the future, a good way to do it, which is kind of said in the question is to roll it to your own solo 401K. However, you actually have to have a business to open that solo 401K with. It doesn't have to be a major business.
Starting point is 00:08:00 It can be a small business. It can be a sole proprietorship. It can be an LLC. But yeah, you would need to do that. And then depending on what type of solo solo 401K you set up, you get planned documents from a provider that kind of helps you have that set up for your business. It sounds more complicated than it really is. There's a lot of them on the Internet that you can find.
Starting point is 00:08:21 And you could kind of organize that yourself and then be able to borrow from it. There's different rules as far as how much you can borrow, how you have to pay it back, how the interest rate is determined, and that will be determined kind of by the provider that you used to set up that solo 401K. I would ask in this question, you know, I'm just answering it as it's asked, right away. But I would also ask a few more questions like, what are you going to use this money for? Is there some other place that you can get money from rather than pulling from a retirement account first? Like, is this something that a home equity line of credit? Like, are you going to use this to like
Starting point is 00:08:58 partially start a fix and flip business and real estate? There's a lot more questions I would want to ask here before I would say this is the route that you should go if you're in need of some funds. A lot of times people look to their 401K because they think it's so liquid and it's usually a larger savings vehicle that they have. But there's other places you might want to look first that are a lot less hassle and have a lot less potential for a penalty at some point if you don't pay something back or if you accidentally withdraw it before a retirement age. But yeah, great, question on the logistics of that. I have done this exact same thing. I am a real estate agent, which counts as self-employment income so I can have a self-directed solo 401K. And what we did,
Starting point is 00:09:42 my husband and I actually took all of the 401ks that we had from all the different locations that we had been investing in and pooled them into one account. I never really understood why people would take their 401k monies from other companies and pool them into their current companies 401k until we had the solo 401K. And then it made a lot of sense because we wanted to be investing in real estate through this account. and making private loans to other investors through this account. So we gathered up all these random funds and poured it in there so we had a big pool to use
Starting point is 00:10:21 from. One thing to note is that 401K loans are capped at $50,000. Or half the balance sometimes. And this is whatever's lower. Yeah, I think there has been a rule change on this. So I want to make sure that we maybe throw in there that this might be something you want to make sure you double check online. But your plan document, when you set up a solo 401K,
Starting point is 00:10:40 it will be spelled out in there precisely what that limit is. Yeah. And if you are setting up a solo 401K, ask a ton of questions of the person or the company that is helping you set it up. Make sure you completely understand not only what you're doing, but how you can access those funds, how you can use those funds, how you can invest those funds with my solo 401K. I can invest in real estate. I can't invest in some collectible items like, I think, wine and art and there's a list of stuff that I cannot invest in.
Starting point is 00:11:20 Conveniently coincides with a list of things I don't want to invest in, so that works out well. Yeah. But you can also invest in stocks. And my plan is set up as loosely as I could. So I am able to take a $50,000 loan if I need to. Kyle, do you have any thoughts on when to take a 401k loan versus when to take a helic? Because right now, helix are kind of expensive. A couple of years ago, that would have been the route I would recommend all the time.
Starting point is 00:11:53 Yeah, that's a good way to look at it right there, that what's the cost of the money? What's the interest rate? And a lot of times on the 401k loans that a helic doesn't have is you have a fixed interest rate. A lot of times it will be like prime plus a certain amount. and it's fixed for up to 15 years a lot of times for your solo 401k loan. But also what Mindy said too, that plan document when you're setting it up, just make sure, and I would say do what Mindy did, make it as loose as possible because some of these that you set up, you can't do Roth contributions to it.
Starting point is 00:12:26 You can't do a loan from it, but that's just because the plan document is written that way in the company that you use. Just use a solo 401K company that allows you to use as much of the 401K rules as you possibly can, whether you use them or not, whether you want to make Roth contributions or not. I had a solo 401 plan once through one of the investment firms that I used in my financial planning firm. And for some reason, I used it because of the fees were incredibly low. They didn't allow a Roth option, which I just did not like at all. And I was able to move it somewhere else. But you just need to keep an eye on those things to make it as loose as possible like Mindy's talking about.
Starting point is 00:13:04 Awesome. Thanks, Kyle. Okay, let's jump into this next one. My parents are older and retired. They built an in-law suite attached to my house on my property and moved in with us. Their financial advisors helping them with financial planning and advise them to pay me rent every month out of a pooled income trust. So now I'm getting a couple of thousand dollars a month in rental income. I've never been a landlord and wasn't planning on being one. So is there anything I need to be thinking about with taxes? Do I have some liability here? Ooh, this is a good one too. Go for it, Mindy. What do you say? Yes, to both of those questions. Do I need to be thinking about taxes? You do because rental income is income. Now, they said they, the financial advisor advised them to pay me rent every month out of a pooled income trust. Kyle, this is not a phrase that I'm familiar with. Could it possibly be that his parents and he have pooled their income together? Is that what that means? No, this is referring to something else. We won't go into the weeds to it, but essentially,
Starting point is 00:14:11 like in this case, it's the parents' trust where they have income coming into it, and they're using it to distribute the income. And my guess is that the advisor, it sounds like he's a good one, or she advised to pay rent to the kid for several. different reasons for relationship reasons, you know, and you don't have this kind of weird relationship where, oh, we're living for free. We kind of built something on your property, who pays what? I would, whenever I worked with clients and there was family stuff, we always set it up as if you had a tenant, as if you had a landlord. Of course, you treat them as family, but you pay them in a way that is very above board that shows, you know, this, the person receiving
Starting point is 00:14:58 rent needs to report the income that she receives. But she can also use that income to pay for some expenses for the unit that is on her property that might offset some of that income. You don't want to pay for expenses that you don't need, but you want to make sure you deduct those expenses also from that income as it's coming in. But yeah, you know, it's definitely, you're a landlord, you know, whether you want it to be or not. And you do have a responsibility. Anytime you make income to know what you're supposed to do with it, reporting it. This is a pretty easy one, you know, when you're filing your taxes. If you do it on turbo tax or something like that, it'll ask you for rental income. You just kind of put it in there. I would suggest in this case
Starting point is 00:15:42 because it's essentially a separate business that you've got, I would open a separate bank account and have the parents put the money in there and then use that bank account to pay any expense that you need to for that unit so that you keep everything straight. And at the end of the year, you can to your CPA, your tax preparer, or when you do it online yourself, you have a really easy record of what your, the income that came in and the expenses that went out, the net of that is what you report as your net income that you get taxed on or gets added to your taxable income. But keeping that separate is probably what you want to do right from the get go just so it doesn't get confused later. That is a really good point. I'm glad you brought that up. I also
Starting point is 00:16:23 want to bring up the D word depreciation. Once you are, when you have a rental property, the government assumes that it is only going to be valid for 27.5 years. So you depreciate 127 and a half, which is a very difficult way to say that of every, of the value of that property that is rental. So that definitely gets into the weeds. Something that this question says, they built an in-law suite attached to my house. I would really, I really want to send this person to a CFP, a CPA, a CPA, a tax provider, a tax professional who understands real estate and real estate taxes because if they built it, do they own it?
Starting point is 00:17:11 Is this a gift to the original questioner? I think that there could be some maybe some sticky things involved in here that are above my pay grade. But the bottom line for the taxes is this is rental income is income. You owe income taxes on it. There are tax benefits for owning rental real estate. And you want to make sure that you are taking depreciation every year because the government assumes you are, even if you aren't. So when you sell it, you'll have to pay depreciation recapture, which is a complicated process that I can't get into in this particular episode. But essentially, you're giving money back to the government for all the money that you got as a discount on your taxes for the depreciation, not all of it, but some of it.
Starting point is 00:18:07 So if you're not taking it, you're just giving back for no reason. So you want to make sure you take it. Yeah, just a follow up. I mean, Mindy's picking out some stuff. this question that I would really be concerned about too, that you just want to make sure, you know, the parents built it onto the house. You know, this depreciation question, now you're getting to where you need to talk to a CPA about the depreciation and the effects on your primary residence as a proportionate amount of, you know, that rental being a part of your
Starting point is 00:18:35 primary residence with depreciation. The other piece that Mindy talked about, you know, did the parents gift this addition to them? How was that done? does this person own this addition? Do they have an agreement that says it's partially owned by the parents? Like this gets real into the weed. So like if I was in this situation advising a client, I would say loan your kids the money to so that you can build this addition so that you own it. Your kids pay you interest on the loan that you use to build this addition. And then your parents rent the place from you rental income so that you have the.
Starting point is 00:19:15 these very clear lines that this is your property, this is your addition, you got a loan for it. You can deduct the interest of that loan because you used it to add on this rental unit. And then you have income from a tenant, which happens to be your parents. There's nothing wrong with that. But you separate these things out. When the parents throw down $60,000 or $100,000 and add on a little unit, you know, who does it belong to? How much say do they have in your property now?
Starting point is 00:19:43 You know, like, what if they move? What if you move? You know, so this is like you can get into some really major family stuff. So I won't belabor it anymore. But this is definitely a situation that you want to talk about sooner rather than later for relationship's sake. Yes. And let's just say that relationship's sake, if you are an only child, it's less important. But if there are siblings involved, it's best to get everything written down. Mom and dad gave me $70,000 to build this. So then, you know, you want to be. I want everything to be fair, or maybe you don't. I'm not the boss of your family, but you know, you just want everything written down. So down the road, you have a record of it.
Starting point is 00:20:24 That's the, that's my relationship advice for you. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going. And more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch.
Starting point is 00:20:48 Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. so every decision actually moves the needle.
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Starting point is 00:23:41 and currently make about 75,000 plus about 10,000 in bonus. Yesterday, I got an offer from another company for the same position, 90,000 base pay plus car stipend and upwards of 35,000 bonus potential. I love my job, but my typical work week is about 50 to 70 hours. I have helped them build this company from three stores to eight. I've been promised that after the owner builds her 11th store, she will help me open one. The owner paid for my training to be a franchisee with the company and has given me opportunities that no one else has to grow with her company. What should I do?
Starting point is 00:24:22 Kyle? Yes. This one is a tough one. There's so many moving pieces of this one. You know, like it's, so I, the first thing that jumps out to me, I value time so much. So as soon as I see someone working 50 to 70 hours a week, I immediately want to ask questions. you know, what is important to you? Do you have a family? Do you like working 50 to 70 hours a week? Does the new job require you to work 50 to 70 hours a week? Even if the new job says you'll only
Starting point is 00:24:50 work 40 hours a week, how do you know that? So like some of these questions when it comes to like the time that you're putting in, those need to be answered first because you can't compare apples to apples if one job is taking 40%, 30% more time than the other, and the quality of life is different. If it's fairly comparable in that standpoint, you know, it sounds like you have a fairly good relationship with the owner of the company that you're at. I would probably have an honest conversation. And, you know, if you feel comfortable with it, talk to them that you like the company,
Starting point is 00:25:27 maybe you feel the hours or too much. This other company is offering you this package. and you're just trying to make a smart decision for the long term for you. You don't have to tell them what you're leaning one way or the other, but that might be a place to go at first. But, you know, like, again, I come back to the time thing and you just got to figure out what is most important to you. Is it most important to you to get as much money as possible right now?
Starting point is 00:25:52 And there's nothing wrong with that. Different stages of life, that's a really good thing because it can set you up well for the next stage of life. But time is just so valuable. So you want to make sure that you're placing enough value on that as you're comparing the two items. Yep. So what I get from this question, it says yesterday I got an offer from another company for the same position. I'm going to go with same hours for the sake of my answer.
Starting point is 00:26:17 They're giving you 15,000 more in salary and 25,000 more in potential bonus plus a car stipend. You're opening up eight stores or you open up five stores for this. this one woman, and she's promised to help you open your own store. She paid your franchisee training. I don't know how much that costs. We don't know what franchise this is, that varies, you know, franchise to franchise. But you said you love your job. And that's really important. Yesterday I got an offer from another company. Are you looking or did somebody recognize how awesome you are and approach you? If you're looking, I'm questioning how much you actually love your job.
Starting point is 00:27:04 If somebody approached you, that's a great bargaining chip. Hi, manager, Barb, I wasn't looking for a job. I love my job. We've talked about me opening my own store after you open your 11th, blah, blah, blah. but I was just approached by this company and they're going to offer me this, you know, could you match the bonus? Could you match the car stipend? Could you match the salary?
Starting point is 00:27:30 Manager Barb might really love you a lot and say, I don't want to lose you over $15,000 in a car. Or she might say, well, I was thinking about firing you anyway, so see ya. And that makes your decision super easy. But with a company that, with a manager that has paid for your franchise, Jay Z training has already told you she's going to help you open a store once she's opened three more stores. And it sounds like that's something that you want. My inclination in your same position would be to stay where you are after having the conversation of, hey, somebody approached me and said, we'll give you more money. Barb, would you match it? And see what Barb will do. I mean,
Starting point is 00:28:09 Barb doesn't have to match the whole thing, but Barb is doing an awful lot for you just by doing all these extra things that she's done. Yeah. Oh, really good. question. That's a tough one. That's a good answer. I like what Mindy said about focusing on the loving your job and what that entails as you work through that one. That's rough. Has anyone had an experience with tax accountants taking responsibility for penalties that directly resulted from their error? Is this reasonable to expect? I discovered that my accountant has given me incorrect advice regarding my retirement account, which I'm correcting now, but will result in penalties. Oh, I like this one. Mindy, I think you did some research on this one and then I'll chime in afterwards. Go for it.
Starting point is 00:28:54 I did some research. I reached out to my friend Natalie Colody, who is a tax professional. And I said, you know, what happens if you make a mistake? Do you just pay for that? And she said, you know, it depends on the tax professional. Ultimately, the taxpayer is responsible for their return. And the tax, you know, you're are responsible for the things that you are doing. When you sign off on your return, you're saying that it's okay, that you're okay with what's being filed. So liability is really only on the tax professional if they were intentionally giving you bad advice. So the first thing you should do is reach out to them and let them know that the information they gave you is wrong. One thing that comes to mind is the Roth IRA contributions. If perhaps they told you to put too much in your Roth IRA, or they said you could contribute when your income was too high and you actually can't contribute, not only do you have to withdraw the money that you put in there, but there are also
Starting point is 00:30:00 fees or penalties associated with that. So if they gave you incorrect information with regards to that, you know, people make mistakes. Perhaps they didn't have all the information. perhaps they mistook you for somebody else's situation. You know, there's a lot of things at play that we don't specifically know. But allowing your tax professional first to understand that there was a problem and to get them involved as soon as possible, they could ask for, you know, a penalty reduction or a tax abatement. one thing to note is if their information caused you to pay less taxes, like you paid $7,000, but you owed $10,000.
Starting point is 00:30:49 You already owed the $10,000. That $3,000 is not something that you're going to, it's not something you should expect your tax pro to pay. That was always your tax burden. Also, to note is that if you get a notice that there's penalties and fees, like I said, you should reach out to the tax pro. Let them reach out to the IRS and make sure, first of all, that they're actually legitimate. The IRS makes mistakes too. So once they know that there is an issue, then they can determine what's going on, what they're going to do. Let
Starting point is 00:31:25 them offer you something. The bottom line is a good tax pro should help with the cost of their mistake as far as fees and penalties go. But get them involved before you make any payments to the IRS, because once you make a payment to the IRS, you're essentially accepting the charges. Yeah, that's a really good overview. And I'll just chime in on the, you know, the IRS does make mistakes. I don't know if that's exactly what's going on here. But personally, there's been two times where I've actually mailed letters back to the IRS saying that they were wrong. And then they acknowledged it. And this is just, you know, the longer you're doing personal finance, the longer you're in business or something that's just even a little
Starting point is 00:32:08 bit more complicated. Everybody makes mistakes, even, even, you know, like professional CPAs will make mistakes. A couple of things I'd add, you know, when it comes to something like this, the fees and penalties that maybe were above and beyond what you already owed, I think it's completely reasonable for you to ask them to cover that. You know, if there was something like you had to pay interest because you didn't pay the amount you owed, but it's due to a poor calculation on their part. I think that's, it's probably not going to be a ton, but that's kind of the part of their cost of doing business. I'll give you an example. So I made a mistake one time with a client, and I forgot to, Mindy's shocked. Oh my goodness, you made a mistake. You bet. Plenty. I forgot to
Starting point is 00:32:52 move money from a client's normal investment account into their Roth IRA before the deadline. We had planned it. I had put a reminder in. For some reason, I missed it. The next year we met and it wasn't in there. and I was like, oh my goodness, I totally missed this. So what I did is I recalculated all the lost market appreciation that had happened that time. The market had gone up. I calculated out 30 years of like basically tax-free growth and the value of that on an assumed tax rate for that client.
Starting point is 00:33:23 And I paid her what she missed out on for that. And we put that in an investment account and that's growing. So I made her whole. I didn't pay her more. I didn't pay her less. But I made the mistake. And a professional, if it's someone good that you're working with, they know they make mistakes sometimes.
Starting point is 00:33:40 And there's ways to make that whole. The other thing that I would say is sometimes people will not agree with you that they made a mistake. Sometimes people will try to hold out and not pay for something that they probably should have. And I think you have to just kind of put maybe a dollar amount on what you are okay with walking away from. because you can take some of these things along ways and try to reclaim. If it's a big tax burden or a big mistake, like when I'm saying big, I'm talking like $50,000 and we're going up from there.
Starting point is 00:34:13 Then you need to probably do something. Maybe talk to an attorney or something like what can you do? Professionals like a CPA like me have errors and emissions insurance for situations where we make a big mistake because we have big dollar amounts that we're working with sometimes, and sometimes the wrong keystroke does something really bad. And we have insurance for that. So that might be the route. But the other piece of that is, you know, if it's $5,000 or less, it seems like a lot of money, but you're not going to gain anything by going after them. Everyone's going to lose. It's going to be heartache. If you can learn from the experience, find someone good and move on.
Starting point is 00:34:53 It doesn't feel good. But that might be the route. You just cover it if they're not willing to come to the table with what they're responsible for. Sometimes that's just part of life. And, you know, hopefully maybe you have kids and they can see how you respond to adversity and, and do the right thing and move on and not let it get to you too much. But yeah, this is a tough situation. It's hard to know whether who's at fault. But if it's a smaller thing and they're a good person, they'll usually come up with the difference for you because, you know, if they're in the wrong. I like that you shared that personal experience to, Kyle. I can't believe you made a mistake, though. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:30 That's not the only one. More will come up as we do podcasts. There was one more one time. At least. All right. Last question. Given the current mortgage interest rates of 7% plus and the average return of the S&P 500 being 9.75% or 7.03% adjusted for inflation over the past 20 years, does it make sense for current buyers to forego investing in the market and put that money towards the loss? loan principle. I have a thought. Kyle, what do you say? Oh, this is a tough one too. I mean, I definitely think when you have higher loan balances on mortgages, it makes it a lot easier to get a guaranteed rate of return, you know, especially, so if you've got a loan interest rate
Starting point is 00:36:18 and inflation has come down currently, especially in that situation. So say we're down to four to six percent inflation, but you have a seven and a half percent mortgage rate, that definitely makes sense to pay towards that since the historical return on the S&P 500 is in that realm. Inflation adjusted, even if you're not making quite as much, adjusted for the risk of investing, debt is risk-free. Paying off debt is a risk-free investment. Guaranteed return. There's nothing else out there like it. So that's a good way to compare that. If inflation is really high currently, my answer gets a little nuanced because you might be able to find something where you get a really high return, like a treasury bond that's paying 9.63% because inflation's super high and you
Starting point is 00:37:05 have a 7.5% mortgage. So it's not always that way, but yes, definitely as mortgage rates get higher, guaranteed return of paying down debt, makes a lot easier, especially if you're someone that's less into risk. If you're more risk-averse, it's a great way to go to improve your cash flow. My thought is for the future. My thought is not for right now. 7% interest. rates are historically average or slightly below average. And the, let's see, how do I want to say this? When I have paid off my mortgage, then I have that much money sitting in a lump in my house. And I have nothing in the stock market for my future. And so I would want, it doesn't make sense outside of, you know, money and percentage rates and guaranteed rate of return and risk and all of that,
Starting point is 00:38:02 I don't want to be a home equity millionaire and have really nothing left. Maybe this is my forever home. It's not. But maybe it is. And then this is paid off. But what am I going to live off of? I could get a reverse mortgage, which I really don't like. I could get a HELOC and who knows what interest rate that's going to be.
Starting point is 00:38:21 I could go out and get an entire new mortgage. on my house to live off of, but having money in the stock market gives me a sense of security. So until mortgage rates get back into the late 70s, double digits, like 16% realm, and I really don't think that'll happen, I would still continue to put money in the S&P 500. I'm not a big fan of paying off your mortgage early. Love it. All right, Kyle, this was a super fun episode, and I appreciate your. time answering all of our listeners questions. Remember, Kyle is a CFP, but he's not your CFP.
Starting point is 00:39:02 Kyle, where can people find you online? Best place is just on my website, Kylemasd.com. It's the easiest place. Sometimes I'm on Twitter, but the website's the best best place to go. How about you, Mindy? Where do people find you? I am at Mindy at BP on all the social medias that count. And you can always email me, Mindy at BiggerPockets.com. If you have a money question for us, you can send it to BiggerPockets.com slash money questions or post it in our Facebook group, which is found at Facebook.com slash groups slash BP Money. All right, that wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is the Kyle Mast and I am Mindy Jensen saying, see you around, friendly clown.
Starting point is 00:39:44 If you enjoyed today's episode, please give us a five-star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you're looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash biggerpockets money. Bigger Pockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kaelin Bennett, editing by Exodus Media, copywriting by Nate Weintraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the Bigger Pockets team for making this show possible.

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