Oh happy day!!!

We have people (quite a lot) paying $$$$$ for a sport ticket.ha…

I am be proponent of paying cash, and loath debt. I will usually only take on debt if can get higher rate of return than interest in near zero risk cash equivelent.

However, at current prices buying even a modest home in NJ is most likely out of reach for all but highest income and most liquid.

The next best thing, would appear to be a large down payment. I would make the upper bound of a down payment the amount that sill leaves you with 6 months (preferable 12) expenses in cash. You calculation for expenses should of course include the new loan, taxes, and other “carrying costs”.

So the question then becomes, what is the lower bound?

At first glance, I would say as much as you put down – given above constraints.

But upon further thought, you might actually want to go with the minimum amount required to get lowest available interest 30 year fixed mortgage and still have positive or at least neutral monthly cash flow.

Here is why. There still significant downside risks for housing and real risk of at least broader asset deflation. Retaining cash would hedge both risks. You would also be able to get larger tax deducation. The latter may be especially important if fall into AMT, and aren’t able to deduct property taxes.

Worse case scenario, if you had to walk away, its better to walk away with another 50-100k. You can always make pre-payments with cash or carry house more months if out of work. You may not be able to take cash out, in today’s HELOC environment and in face of further declines in home values.

A high loan to value on a single asset isn’t always a bad thing, if you total degree of leverage is low. Here, it might actually reduce risks.

# NNJJEFF Says:
August 12th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

Question for the board:

If you are buying a house in the 600K range, would you put around 200K as down payment and get a lower interest rate conforming loan, or put minimal 20% down, take a non-conforming loan of higher interest rate and save for rest for renovations.

TIA

Like it in theory. Really depends on your situation, how much you can save and how quickly, job security, etc. We want to limit our loan to 350k, and we’re planning on putting down in the 175k-200k range.

Hoping the price is right, the Mets set that figure as the average cost for the best seats next year during Citi Field’s first season. While that’s a 79 percent increase over this year, it’s a small fraction of the $2,500 for the top tickets at the new Yankee Stadium.

“We have different customer bases and fan bases,” Mets executive vice president Dave Howard said. “We set our price where we think it was fair given all considerations of the various issues.”

The Mets appeared to make a conscious effort to price themselves lower than the YankeesNew York Yankees .

“Whatever works for them, I’m happy for them,” Yankees chief operating officer Lonn Trost said. “We do what we think is appropriate. In order to have 47,000 affordable seats, we had to have 4,500 expensive seats.”

The priciest tickets at Citi Field are the 76 Sterling Club Platinum seats behind the plate, which include food and nonalcoholic drinks. The price is up from $276 for the comparable seats at Shea Stadium this year, a 73-seat section called Home Plate Club Gold. All of the most expensive tickets for next year have been sold.

Citi Field, scheduled to open in April along with the new Yankee Stadium, has 42,500 seats, down from 57,365 at Shea Stadium. But there will be about 39 ticket prices, an increase from the current 29.

Prices for tickets behind the dugouts at $800 million Citi Field average $375 for the first two rows, with the best seats in the house at $495.

The average price is $225 for rows three-to-six, $175 for rows seven-to-12 and $150 for rows 13-to-31.

A little farther out in the lower deck, the field seats average $125 to $225.

At the $1.3 billion new Yankee Stadium, which seats 52,325, the 1,800 Legends Field Suite seats in 25 sections ringing home plate go for $500 to $2,500, up from $250 to $1,000 for the comparable tickets this year. There also will be 1,200 Main Level Outdoor Suite seats in nine sections behind the plate at $350 to more than $500, and 1,300 Terrace Level Outdoor Suite seats in nine sections behind the plate, which sold out at $100 to $135.

The Yankees have not announced prices for the seats near the outfield but say they will keep the lowest-priced reserved seats in the top deck at $20 and $25 and bleachers at $12. Trost said 25,000 seats will not have an increase and that a complete price list will be released this month.

Reserved seats in the upper deck at Citi Field, called the Promenade, will average $19.

Howard said the Mets have talked to about 3,000 season ticket holders about relocation and hope to speak with about 3,000 more by the end of next month. The Mets are requiring 10 percent deposits for next year.

“We weren’t looking to extract the last dollar,” Howard said. “We were trying to produce revenue that would support our expenses and our debt service but also balance that against the realities that tickets were going to be going up for our customers. We were going to deliver qualitatively a far, far higher product for them.”

While the Yankees have the same prices for all games, the Mets have five sets of prices, depending on the opponent, the month and the day of the week. An April midweek night game costs less than half the price of weekend games against a popular rival.

The Mets have sold 48 of 49 available luxury suites for next season at $275,000 to $500,000, with some purchased for up to 10 years.

Trost said the Yankees have lease commitments for 44 of 51 suites priced at $600,000 to $850,000, and are sold out at the $650,000 and $850,000 levels.

The Yankees already had the third-highest average ticket price in the major leagues this season at $41.40, according to the Team Marketing Report, trailing the World Series champion Boston Red Sox ($48.80) and Chicago Cubs ($42.49). The Mets were fourth at $34.05, well above the major league average of $25.40.

http://tinyurl.com/632hxa

http://tinyurl.com/6xetf6

What black ops do Bergabe, Klink, Cox, et al have cooked up now?

Come on now, where the hell does he get off trying to get visitors to buy his damn groceries while claiming to stage an fun “event” and then turn around and try to cheat everyone out of their money playing some trumped up poker game. If that’s not a cheapskate scam, then I don’t know what one is.

Funny, you got posters here lining up to get fleeced like lemmings jumping off a cliff. I don’t know what the world is coming to with this younger generation coming to the fore.

August 12th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Right on bro. You make my day.I should vote it post of the day :)

#81 re101

#139

You’re smarter than the rest of the board. The free tissue and food ideas are just brilliant. Well done!

#81 re101

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a8sW0n1Cs1tY&refer=home

And, this does NOT include the $1 Trillion lost so far in market cap!

They couldn’t make billions of dollars fishing. I think the GSE’s need to become agencies again or just plain private companies without government backing.

I found some info on the foreclosure. The defendant in the foreclosure proceedings looks like it might have actually been the guy with the gun. There was a quit-claim deed according to “what’s that site that shows recent bergen county sales?”.

“In an interview I think the CEO of Fannie Mae had said something like What were we supposed to do? All the money was in nonprime. Were we supposed to put a sign on the door that said ‘Gone Fishing’?”

Had that gone fishing, they wouldn’t have any problems.