Millionaire by 30

In the past year I’ve been devouring personal finance books and this book definitely offers a unique perspective. 

The most valuable pieces  I got from this book for my situation:

Buy a property you will be residing in for at least 2 years so you can take advantage of the $250k free capital gain you can take on the sale. 

Buy it ASAP because you need to hold it for 5 years to get this break.  Also, who knows how much longer the US government can even afford to allow it given current economic state we’re in.

Home Equity is worth nada because it’s not liquid.  If all your net worth is locked in Home Equity, if your property’s market value decreases so does your net worth.  The book gives some enlightening methods for separating the two and leveraging to get on the fast track of becoming a millionaire by 30. They suggest 30 year mortgage and given how low the rates are, I’m leaning toward agreement.

Don’t invest in IRA’s heavily because you’re still going to have to pay the tax man one way or the other.  They suggest instead putting it into property and when I thought of their reasoning, hello $250k tax free on gains for sales every 2 years if you can meet the conditions for the break is way better than IRA’s tax advantages.  I like their vacation property idea too, because you can enjoy the investment now versus IRA’s 

and pension you have to wait till retirement.

I also like their knowledge building family vacations, where members work on improving themselves and helping each other out.  Obviously you need a non dysfunctional family but it’s a super idea if you have investors and lawyers in the family.

Another thing I’d forgotten about is Financial and Real Estate Investment gains don’t get hit with Medicare or SSI tax.  So it is definitely an advantageous way to earn money.

Con:  even thought the book was written post Housing Bubble; it assumes you can easily have a 5% to 8% appreciation in your housing and investments.  While I do think property is a good investment given the possibility of rates rising along with inflation; we’ve never had a scenario where USA was in so much debt.

Also for New Yorkers, the main obstacle is you can’t even get a shitty studio for under $300k in NYC.  And NYC is a mainly a coop market.  And if you are lucky enough to find a deal on Condo you’ll still have to deal with heavy maintenance fees which are not tax deductible. Plus banks aren’t exactly giving away free credit these days.

All in all this book is definately an interesting read because of its non-traditional ways of thinking.  But again don't construe any of this as financial advice because its tailored to me and everyone's tax situation and life goals are different.