mortgage

Selling a house: Would you take a 100% profit?

Posted by

This recent story on the Guardian Newspaper website caught my eye about negative equity. Virginia Wallis responds to a Q&A from ‘KJ’ who writes about her worries about negative equity, and unfortunately underlines the problems that house purchasers face in a bullish market that turns negative. Unfortunately the writer’s response isn’t that helpful or accurate…

Go and read the story, since I can’t repost it here. In summary… KJ bought a house very near the peak of the market in 2007 for £154,000. Obviously she’s worried now that prices are falling, and is thinking of selling up. The respondent unfortunately seems to have poor math in the article, missing out on £2000 in the calculations. … She put £8000 down in the first place, and the other 95% was a mortgage.

Where did she get the 10%?

In sum, here’s a lady who bought near the top of the market. With the terms she employs in the article, like ‘invested’, and ‘valued at £185,000’. Now she’s panicking over a 10% variable rate (I have no idea why or how she came up with 10% pa). Top rates these days in the U.K. are about 6.5% to a little over 7.2%. It would be quite a jump to 10% (unless she’s saying something I don’t know). Australian rates are another story though.

She ‘believes’ her flat was worth £185,000 in February, but has no independent way to verify this assumption. All such ‘values’ are only theoretical until someone ACTUALLY puts down the cash. However, the current offer she’s got is £167,000. In such a difficult market as this, she’s actually lucky. She’d actually be sitting on a gross profit of nearly £21,000. Of course, early redemption fees would eat some of that, as would transaction fees. Still she’d make a reasonable profit on her ‘investment’.

Is this a place to live?

It seems though that we have what we might term a ‘weak’ card. I don’t see how if she were actually living on this property she would be thinking like this. It seems that she may really have ‘invested’ in the property as a buy-to-let, and may be unable to rent it out at the moment. With the threat of higher interest rates, lacklustre rentals, and a likely profit, she may be willing to cash out. If she were the owner, would she be thinking like this?

Why does she have to remortgage?

She writes “I have to remortgage in January 2010 and am panicking over the possibility of negative equity”. I would guess that she’s is currently struggling to make the mortgage payments at the moment, if she is living there. She is naturally concerned that rates are rising (they are), and they could go much higher (remember that rates have been at historical lows in MANY countries), and her mortgage is an ARM with favorable upfront terms (likely and common scenario) due to reset in 2010 at much higher rates than a year and a half ago. It seems unlikely she may be able to meet THOSE payments, never mind the payments that might result from additional rate rises between now and then.

From the tone of the letter, it seems that this ‘house-owner’ was seeking to make some kind of profit in the short-term while taking a longer term gamble that would allow her an exit strategy before the three years were up. It seems she has been wrong-footed by the market, and is now seeking an early exit. But will she succeed in taking a profit?… Let’s see.

100% profit, that ain’t bad?

Why? There are early redemption fees (approx. 3% of the mortgage amount), a likely stamp tax of 1% on the amount of the property, ie. approx. £1,670. It’s difficult to assess other fees on transaction costs, but they could easily range from £2500~£6500 plus fees of £500 for lawyer fees. Then you have removal fees, too, and other sundry costs of setting up a new home. Suddenly that fat profit of £21000 is looking a lot smaller! You could be paying out £13,000 or more in expenses, fees, and taxes. You’d still have a net £8,000 on your initial investment of £8,000. Which would be a return of 100% on a year and a half. Not too shabby. But certainly a lot less than KJ was hoping for when she gambled on the market.

That calculation only includes exit costs. To assess the true profit, you’d have to include the transaction fees, duties, and other costs that she incurred to get into the transaction in the first place. I wouldn’t be surprised if she spent a similar amount on the set up costs of the property transaction as she does getting out of it. Goodbye 100% profit!

What would you do? How would you get out of this mess?

The DEAL – Would you buy an extra car parking space?

Posted by

I was emptying the mail at school today, when I picked up a flyer that had a picture of a car on the front. I scanned the Chinese, immediately noting that they were offering parking lots for sale in our building. So I began to wonder if it’s a good way or not to make a little extra cash.

The DEAL

Quite simply: one parking lot is available for approximately NT$550K. That would allow you to park one car there wherever the lot is located in the building.

The Opportunity

Once purchased, you would be able to rent out the lot to whoever you can find. If the lot is located on the B2 floor, you could probably rent it for NT$2000 per month. For the lot located on the B3 floor, you might manage to earn about NT$1700 per month.

The Costs

There are of course costs associated with this kind of purchase: transaction and other one off costs. When the deal goes through, you’ll face the challenge of finding customers, too. On a regular basis, you will need to pay NT$200 per month in building fees that are applicable to all car parks in the building. There aren’t any upfront taxes I’m aware of, other than the requirement to report your income.

How much can you earn?

Over one year, and assuming you cover the building fees, you’d likely earn about NT$18600 or so. This would amount to a gross return on investment of 3.38%. Additionally, you may be able to sell the car park at some future point in time, which might earn additional growth in the value of a carpark. If your client pays the building fees, then you could make an additional NT$2400 pa., earning 3.81%. You may also be able to purchase the lot at a slight discount of 5%, improving your ROV nicely to about 4.01%

What is the highest interest rate?

I’ve been searching for ages, and I’ve found that the highest interest rate you can get at the moment in Taiwan is approsimately 2.65% for a 12-month CD at the post office. There are occasional offers marginally better than this, but since the Post Office is govt. backed it’s likely that this is the best you can get.

So, if you bought it straight up, your gross margin would vary from the minimum of 0.75% to a more respectable 1.36% vs. the post office rate.

There are a number of assumptions in this scenario that would warrant further note.

  • Could you rent the space out for 12 months EVERY month? It’s not likely, there are times the lot would be empty for sure, as you wait for your next client.
  • Rental units in this area of Tamsui are generally undersubscribed and there is a reasonable supply of spaces BUT several of the lots are above ground, and as property prices spiral, it’s likely those lots would be turned into apartment blocks which may or may not have open access parking.
  • The population in Zhuwei is certainly rising, and quickly, so this should also help property values in the medium to long term.
  • There isn’t a big office space market here yet, though, so finding a renter would likely mean that the renter is himself renting an apartment without a space. Many in our community do this already.
  • I’d certainly be happy to have another source of income from a parking lot; perhaps even two lots would help me reach a personal goal.
  • Mortgage such a lot might help improve returns on the purchase, but with mortgage rates nearly at 4%, it’s unlikely that you’d see much benefit. And rates are rising.

A final note: Taiwanese are happy to buy apartments and car parks for rental and rent them out at rates we would find worthwhile doing. For example, people buy a house @ NT$5 million and rent out the house for less than NT$15K per month. The amount wouldn’t even cover the mortgage if it was over 50% of the total. It’s a math that has ALWAYS puzzled me.

Would you do this deal? Let me what you think…

Buying a house: saving for the deposit? It does have advantages…!

Posted by

3

With the advent of 100%+ mortgages, borrowers these days find it easy to borrow the money they need to buy the house they want. It didn’t always use to be that way. In fact, up until the recent credit boom, borrowers were required to pay a deposit on the house from their own savings. In fact, in Taiwan, it is still this way. For new houses and pre-construction units, the deposit is actually between 10%-20%, but for second hand units, it is typically 30%-40% of the sale price.

When my wife and I first married, saving any kind of deposit was quite difficult, because we were starting from nothing. We had nothing in the bank after our wedding; so purchasing any property was simply out of the question. If we had been living in the UK or US, it would have been quite simple to go out and borrow the money for our house, our furnishings, and everything else we needed for the house.

Looking back, though, I realized that the fiscal discipline that we learned from saving for the deposit taught us much more about how (dare I say NOT) to manage our cash, cash flow, savings and credit cards. So, today when I was chatting with my good friend, Cindy, about buying a house. She had just moved into her own apartment, and was dreaming about buying a house. But it’s difficult when you are starting out to save money, because even renting a house requires quite a bit of cash.

After I got home, I realized that it was having to save for the deposit that helped us to manage our cash flow much better. It took us over 5 years to save up enough for a house, but we did it! And, at the beginning of the five years, only my wife had a proper job!

So why? Simply, because if you can save a cash deposit, then you have learned a number of important skills for a house-holder:

  1. you can manage your income/expenses carefully;
  2. you have budgeted properly;
  3. you have consistently saved up money;
  4. you know that it’s possible to manage your money without spending it all; and,
  5. by committing your own money to your house, you are making an emotional commitment that having a 100% mortgage may not allow because you are risking your OWN money.

Together, these qualities are more than enough to prepare your for the task of buying and managing your own house. More importantly, with these skills, you are setting your stage for managing your finances for the rest of your life (God willing!).

In addition, when you do purchase your house, you will have a ton of advantages that you didn’t reckon on in the first place:

  1. lower overall mortgage rate than 100% mortgage;
  2. lower overall mortgage payments vis-a-vis if you had paid for the house in a 100% mortage!
  3. a better credit record because you’re not overleveraged;
  4. you’re not overleveraged;
  5. in a tough seller’s market, you’ll have some more ‘protection’ against negative equity situations;
  6. you may even be able to use the savings habit to pay off your entire mortage much sooner saving a lot of interest payments over the term of your mortgage!

So, if you are forced by circumstances to save for a deposit for your house, look on it as an opportunity not a burden! We learned a lot… Seize the chance to save! No matter how hard it is for you to cut back, it will be worth it in the end.

Did you have to save for a deposit for your first house? How much was it? Was it difficult or easy for you to get it together? I’d love to hear how you