2016 summary of finances

[disneysteve]

"motivated seller" if you will.

That's always the best kind.

We had something similar when we bought our house. It had been under contract 2 times before we came along and both times the deal fell through. The husband had been transferred out of state. We showed up pre-approved for the mortgage and with no contingency clause because we didn't have a house to sell first. The price had been knocked down a couple of times and we were in the right place at the right time.

[kork13]

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but the appraisal really doesn't mean anything at all. The house is worth what a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept and that's it. Some houses sell below appraised value. Some sell for more than appraised value. The appraisal is more for mortgage and tax purposes.

True of course. But lacking other means, the appraisal is at least an indicator. I'm basically just saying that we got a good deal on the house. The family we bought the house from very intentionally priced it low because they were retiring & moving to the lower 48 about a month after they put it on the market...."motivated seller" if you will.

[disneysteve]

This year has been remarkably prosperous for us

my wife is pregnant with our second baby, due in early June!

Congratulations on the successful year and the baby on the way. How exciting!

bought a new house with a 20% DP, plus we got it for ~$15k/4% below appraisal.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but the appraisal really doesn't mean anything at all. The house is worth what a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept and that's it. Some houses sell below appraised value. Some sell for more than appraised value. The appraisal is more for mortgage and tax purposes.

[MonkeyMama]

Oh, and my wife is pregnant with our second baby, due in early June! It'll be an interesting year... Cheers!

Congrats! On the net worth gains AND the new baby!

[MonkeyMama]

Net worth is up $61,000 for the year, or 12%.

Paid down mortgage by $8,000; the rest is investment contributions and gains.

Our household income (salary) hit six figures for the first time. (If you count other income streams, I am sure we have been at this income level for a while. I didn't work as much OT and we didn't do as many side hustles this year, but my spouse picked up some more regular work. So that is why the salary category got a boost). Seriously, like our salary income was $100,200. Just squeaked by.

[kork13]

This year has been remarkably prosperous for us, to the point that I was shocked when I finally tallied everything up tonight.

- Total Net Worth: $536k, +40.8%
- Financial assets only: $362k, +19.5%. Investments returned 6.5%.
- Real estate: $610k value, $178k equity. Sold one house & walked away with ~$5k, turned our home into a rental & paid down $8,500 in principle, then moved to Alaska and bought a new house with a 20% DP, plus we got it for ~$15k/4% below appraisal. And GREAT NEWS!! -- The rental house is now under its first lease, as of today! It took longer than we'd have liked (~2 months), but winter is a tough season for new rentals, at least in Oklahoma...
- Debts: Besides the two mortgages, we bought a new car for my wife in August with a 50% loan. We'll be paying it off in March (-ish), just to free up the cashflow, and we both hate being in debt.

The most important milestone IMO for us this year was seeing our retirement assets climb up above $250k ($263k at this moment), between both of our Roth IRAs & TSPs. At age 30/31, I'm very happy & extremely grateful that we're doing as well as we are.

Next year will likely be somewhat financially draining... We'll be paying off DW's car loan, and I'll be trading in my car (a "cheating" VW Golf Diesel) for a replacement car, but gratefully that'll only be $2k-$3k out of pocket. We want to do some remodeling/improvements to our new home. We also want to pay down the rental's mortgage ASAP (hopefully within 3-5 years), and also need to rebuild our taxable investments, which we drained in order to purchase our new home. Oh, and my wife is pregnant with our second baby, due in early June! It'll be an interesting year... Cheers!

[scfr]

Net worth increased 10.3%
Financial assets increased 11.1%
Non-financial assets (house & car) were flat . . . Just like in tomhole's case, vehicle depreciation and house appreciation essentially offset each other.

Heading in to the new year, we're keeping our heads up and our eyes forward.

[StormRichards]

I maintain data on our retirement accounts but I would have to log into several account websites to try to put together a Net Worth number for 12/31/15. I personally don't like to include our home in that calculation anyway, so I am just going to go with the 2016 impact on our retirement accounts.

With data through my last workday of the year, our retirement accounts are up approximately $110k. The market had a bit of a push since but ended with some pullback, so I suspect the $110k is still a good ballpark figure.

[Nutria]

Financial assets: +11.3%
Mortgage: -34.5% (That's a good thing... )
Paid off van.
No CC debt.

By EOY 2017, mortgage will be paid off, but cash will also be down, because of home repairs.

[disneysteve]

Now that the business year is officially over:

Our financial assets increased by 7.69%.
This is only counting cash, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc. It doesn't include home value, cars, or any other tangible items.

On the debt side, our mortgage balance is down $7,723.
We paid off our van. Payments in 2016 were $4,956.
We took out a new student loan. Current balance is $4,371.
So our total debt dropped by $8,308.

That means our net worth increased by 8.75%.

[tripods68]

Are you in an area with an exception to the $424,100 max value for a VA loan?

Being a HCOLA the max VA loan they gave us was $475K which surprised us. To get this house we put $ 5k initially, after closing and lender's credit of 10K, we received $4083 back. Our net cost $917.00 mainly to pay towards PITI. Pretty sweet deal!

We originally going to use CalVET their interest wasn't as good as the VA @ 3.25.

[corn18]

Are you in an area with an exception to the $424,100 max value for a VA loan?

[tripods68]

But still... Personal Finance rule #1 of house buying is to have a minimum 20% DP, so that you don't need mortgage insurance.

Does that somehow not apply to VA loans?

No PMI on VA loans.

[Nutria]

VA Loan 100% in a new community in NorCal.

But still... Personal Finance rule #1 of house buying is to have a minimum 20% DP, so that you don't need mortgage insurance.

Does that somehow not apply to VA loans?

[tripods68]

They loaned you 104% of the appraised value (which obviously implies $0 DP)?

VA Loan 100% in a new community in NorCal.
We figured we will be here in our new house for there a long time. Our plan is to pay it off by the time I reach retirement age 59.5 to pay off in lump sum.