anyone considered doing that for those that have their own house. I just realised if i had bought silver instead of buying my house i would be up quite a bit $ by now. And considering what will happen in next couple of years i can guess that i would be up even more. Since i started stacking 1 year ago my house hasnt increased or decreased and dont expect it to in next few years. So question is has anyone has seriously thought of selling their house and putting it all in pm.
Yup I did it.. Wish I had done it sooner though (I bought at $24) http://www.bullionmark.com.au/gold-research/blog/2010/06/11/74-gold-vs-australian-real-estate.html I like the chart that they have done here back to 1880 comparing the cost of an average house in ounces of Gold. According to the graph around 2005 Would have been the best time to sell a house in Australia and buy into Gold or Silver.
But if you're like me and you think that house prices are static at the moment, and will quite possible drop down the track, better to cash out now.
I wonder if, down the track, silver and gold became so well known to the point where they would be treated almost as money by people.... So for example sellers would accept bullion as payment for property/goods/services. .. eg imagine just plonking down 1000oz of silver to buy a house ....
Everyone should definitely fire sale their houses. It would be terrible to have exposure to different asset classes. all eggs, 1 basket. PM me before you list your house. you might save on agent fees.
In America some stores are accepting other currencies e.g euros because they don't trust the US dollar, so I assume they would jump at the chance to get gold or silver. However in Australia I don't think we're allowed to use whatever we want to buy and sell commercially.
Any assets sold in Australia (other than primary place of residence) is subject to CGT. The other problem you have is the cost of getting out of and eventually back into R/E and I'm not talking about in terms of growth. Even though you dont pay CGT on the house you live in the agent fees, stamp duties, moving costs etc on an average house these days can easily total in excess of 10% of the purchase/sale price. I know we've had explosive growth in PM prices over the last year or so - but you have to be sure of at least 15-20% growth just to cover costs before you can start saying you have made a profit - and then if you are also paying CGT ...........! There are also many other factors than aren't just financial. Assuming you are going to rent - what happens in 12 months when the owner of your house decides to move in and wants you out - now you have to find a new place and move house - huge hassle!! (We've have just moved so this one is a sore point for me). Are you really sure that house prices wont move - what will you do if you are wrong? (I'm not saying you are - I'm just saying you need to cover all bases and plan what to do in a worst case scenario) Last year we went around Oz in a caravan and we met A LOT of people who had sold the family home to travel around in a caravan for 12 months because house prices were going to "stay where they were or go down", who now can't afford to buy back into the housing market because the prices have moved so much! This is not only a simple "sell one to buy another" situation. There are a lot of finanicial, emotional and many other factors to think about!!! malachii
There's a number of folks who have done this actually. John of Stella Concepts/Spotmex fame did this and now rents and sits on a comfortable 7k+ stack of silver (I've seen it!). Some people are property idealists no matter what the environment, others are cycles people. I find it depends very much on what stake you have in the game as to where your bias lies. I'd like a PPOR for sure (always been a renter), but when it costs only a fraction to rent as it does to own, it doesn't make much financial sense to be a buyer in the current market IMHO. To each their own.
It's hard in retirement to sell your housing investment one brick at a time... But if you buy silver and gold, well, you can work out the rest.
i told my dad to sell his house and put 400k into silver back in oct last year. if he done that he would have made 550k+ by now.... i doubt houses went up 40% in less then 4 months in melbourne south east
This is massively risky. Some people here say renting is smart. I'll admit that in SOME cases, renting can be better financially. But in 100% of cases it also sucks. I don't want to go back to house inspections, having to ask to put a screw in a wall to hang a picture, dealing with scumbag real estate agents for every little bloody issue, constantly increasing rents, being turfed out when the owner wants to sell, and all the other crap that comes with renting.
You could argue the same being in a PPOR mate. I don't have to pay water rates or council rates. If my neighbours suck I can move when I please, I don't have to sell up first. I don't live in fear of lowering house prices locking me in. I don't have a mortgage, tied to the bank as a debt slave. I can throw in my job if I want to and find something else and still get by. I don't live in fear of rate rises. Whilst renters can't put a nail in the wall as they wish, owners can't just go modifying their 'owned' properties without council approval. I pay 'dead' money in rent, you pay 'dead' money in interest - usually at a much higher rate (especially in the short term). Calculate the amount of interest you pay on the life of that average home loan in this country today and I'll take the pepsi challenge comparing it to rent over the same period. I can afford to live (as a renter) in areas I couldn't possibly hope to buy. I get access to the wealthier suburb infrastructure, often neglected by councils and government in 'affordable housing' areas. We all have masters bungo, it's just who we select to appease that alters the manner in which we can conduct ourselves. Both have pros and cons, but invariably, people focus on the cons without realising the pros of each situation. In the right environment, I AM a buyer. All things considered equal financially, it makes sense to own rather than rent. Problem with the current environment is that the market manipulators have implanted the ideal into people that buying at ANY cost is still preferrential to renting. I see through the charade and I'm not conned by it. I can count!
Buying is definitely overrated. You can easily make a mistake and buy something that you are not really happy with. Maybe you thought you'd like the neighbourhood but don't, maybe the neighbour turns out to be a real pain in the neck, maybe you need to move jobs, etc, etc.... Plus, all your wealth is tied up in one asset and vulnerable to the economic downwinds. You generally can't just immediately sell up if you see a downturn coming. In saying that, I was one of those who did buy in 2001. I was young and didn't know any better and only had the advice of my parents who were financial illiterates. By pure luck of course, a house boom was right around the corner and when I started to learn in 2008 about economics virtually the first thing I did was sell, take the money and run so to speak. Deploying that capital in Gold, Silver and related shares has made me a lot of money in the meantime and I'm in a stable rental situation. The first one admittedly turned out badly, but I'm now living in a much better house in a better location than I could afford with a mortgage, with lots of spending money.
Forgot one big plus to renting : Something breaks, I don't have to fix it. I let the agent know in writing and they fix it, no out of pocket maintenance expenses for the renter. How much would a PPOR owner spend on maintenance in a house over 30 years I wonder? Not just bricks and mortar either, but electricals, painting, floors, carpets, ovens/stoves, water pipes... it all adds up!
NICE! I was saving for a house deposit, but dont have a ft job atm (uni student).. but the deposit was sizable..parents saying buy a house..i did some research and went..hmmm derr how could I have missed this! .. and the rest is history and my 'house deposit' is sitting in my safe Screw housing.. white metal is where it is at.
My advice, If you are on this forum you love Silver, so sell the anchor (house), buy lots of Silver and die happy.
For what its worth - Ben Bernanke rents from wikipaedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bernanke The Bernankes have two children. They refinanced their Capitol Hill home in late 2009 because they "had an adjustable-rate mortgage and it exploded." Now they have a 30-year fixed rate mortgage at a rate of a little over 5 percent. Bernanke and his wife own one car, a Ford Focus. I can take a hint ...
