My home as an investment: solid returns after 2 years

It seems, every week, there are a lot of PF bloggers talking about renting vs. owning, and it's a subject I love to comment on. This morning I read Real Estate Isn't a Gimme on Money Musings, a post referencing a David Crook article on Yahoo! finance.

It all got me thinking about my house, how much has gone into it, and how much I'd get out of it if I sold right now. I decided then to make a spreadsheet, add up all my payments, maintenance costs, small improvement projects (that I wouldn't have done in an apartment), and my startup costs (closing costs and down payment) to see what kind of returns I've seen in my two years in the place. Here is a breakdown of what was included:

• closing costs (less than 1% of loan value)
  
• down payment (11% of home price)
• monthly payments (20 year 5/1 ARM with initial 5.o% rate, plus taxes and insurance)
• maintenance costs (only those that would not have been incurred in a rental)
• improvement costs (landscaping, new hardware, painting, etc.)
  
• Sale proceeds, assuming market value and a 6% realtor fee (which we won't be paying when we actually sell, but included for illustrative purposes)

The end result? We broke even, spending $100 more than we gained in the 2 years we have lived there. That may not sound good, but it is . . . and here's why. We lived in the house for those two years. That means we had no rent to pay. Between rent and renter's insurance, we had been paying about $820 per month to rent before we bought the house. (As an aside, this apartment was 500 sq ft smaller than our house and had no garage . . . so our living situation improved as well.)

When I factored in the monthly rental savings (assuming no increase in rent-- which is doubtful), I get a considerably different bottom line-- an internal rate of return of more than 44% annually. Forty-four percent. Now THAT is a return on investment.

The usual caveats apply-- your mileage may vary, your market may differ, etc. In fact, I'm certain that such a gain would not have been possible in larger markets because of the considerable cost difference between renting and owning. But in a market where they are relatively close, like mine, your returns from buying a home over renting can be tremendous. Ours certainly have been.

On real estate leverage and paying off a mortgage

JLP at AllFinancialMatters has a disagreement with some arguments on the virtues of paying off a mortgage early. I agree with JLP, and it comes down to some (somewhat) basic calculations. Let's take a quick detour here by talking about real estate as an investment. First of all, my opinion is that real estate is a phenomenal investment. The reason can be summed up in one word: leverage. Leverage, in terms of real estate, refers to the relatively small investments you make each month in order to get the returns on a much larger sum of money. This leverage comes in two basic varieties.

1. You own your home. You get phenomenal leverage here because the "investment" turns out to merely be a tradeoff. It's what it costs you to buy a home vs. what it costs you to rent. Housing expenses will always be there, whether you rent or buy. So the real "cost" of homeownership is how much more it costs you to buy than rent. If renting costs you $800 a month and owning a $150,000 home costs you $1100 in mortgage payments, taxes, maintenance, insurance, etc., then your investment cost for the real estate property is $300 per month. Historically, real estate appreciation is in the neighborhood of 5%. But do you earn 5% on your $300 monthly investment? NO! You earn it on the value of the house-- $150k. A quick calculation says that 5% of $150k is $7500. So after one year, you've invested $3600 into the house, and the value has gone up $7500-- not to mention the small gains in equity from paying down the principal. You don't have to be a math whiz to know what a phenomenal return that is.
2. You own rental property. The reasoning here is identical. You pay so much per month in costs, but you get some (or all, or more) back in rental income. So again you pay a small amount (at worst) each month to get appreciation on a much larger amount. Interest rates are higher on rental properties, but rental income usually makes up for much of this difference. Again you get a phenomenal return.

In both cases you are putting in a small amount to obtain growth on a much larger amount. Leverage. In all but the worst housing markets you can get good financial gains using leverage in real estate.

How does all this relate to the argument over paying down a mortgage? The bottom line is that every time you throw extra funds at the mortgage, you are reducing the leverage you have on the property. Think about it this way: if you buy a house outright (no mortgage), you have absolutely no leverage. How long will it take you to see good returns on the investment? Well, unless appreciation is well above average, you never will. You'll merely see a 5% ROI. There is a sliding scale between paying in full and paying only the minimum payment, and the earlier you pay off the mortgage, the closer you are to paying in full. In other words, your returns go down as you try to pile up the equity. It has less to do with the difference in rates between the mortgage and the stock market (though this does matter if you divert additional mortgage payments into the market) and more to do with the reduction in leverage.

Let me give you a quick example. Take the $150,000 house mentioned above, at a rate of 6%. The payment is approximately $900, so assume an extra $200/month for other associated costs. The costs above renting (assume $800) are $300/month. You are paying an extra $300/month over renting to gain this investment. Assuming 5% appreciation per year, at the end of 10 years your equity is almost $118,000 (on $36000 total investment over time). According to Excel's XIRR function, that's an annual return of 22.5% on your money. Not bad!

Suppose instead that you pay an extra $100 toward the principal each month over the same 10 years. Then your equity would be about $134,200. Sounds better, right? But wait-- you paid an extra $100 each month ($48,000 total). What is your annual return now? About 19.6% per year overall. Still phenomenal, of course. How does it compare to investing in the market? When the extra $100 is conservatively invested in the market (assume 8%) instead, your overall rate drops only to 19.8%. With more aggressive investments (12% return) your overall rate climbs back up to 20.3%. If you invest that $100 in another real estate property (say, a rental) your returns are likely to be even greater (again through the power of leverage).

How many investors would shrug off a couple of percentage points? Not many. But that's exactly what you do when you sacrifice leverage for more equity. Paying off a mortgage 5 or 10 years early sounds great for your peace of mind, but it's lousy for your bottom line . . . many higher yield alternatives will make you richer in the end.

I have an ARM. So what?

Jim over at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity published a devil's advocate piece on adjustible rate mortgages. It was written by Colin Robertson of The Truth About Mortgage.

ARMs are taking a beating right now in the media. There are too many people out there that took out an ARM in order to get into a house they couldn't afford otherwise, saving some bucks every month on interest for the short term and not really considering what would happen when that term ran out. Big Surprise! Foreclosure after foreclosure as the fixed periods on the loan run out.

Like most other financial products, however, there is a right way to use an ARM. In the second paragraph of his Devil's Advocate post, in fact, Colin outlines one such circumstance:

Considering the average time people spend in a home is roughly three or four years, why settle for a high-priced fixed mortgage? You can get a 5, 7, or 10 year hybrid arm that comes with a significantly lower interest rate, plus the safety of a fixed period for longer than you’ll likely stay in the home.

Colin spends most of the blog being a smartass (which I can appreciate), but this is precisely why I got an ARM. I am living in what you might call a "starter home." It's in a neighborhood with only 3 or 4 floorplans and small houses and is peopled largely with young families and retirees. I purchased the house because it was a financial step up from renting (at least where I live) and because I was ready for the responsibility (and perks) of being a homeowner. I knew going in, as I know now 2 years into my 5 + 1 ARM, that there is no way I will end the fixed portion of my mortgage in this house.

What did it save me? Well, it's often claimed that an ARM doesn't make sense when fixed mortgage rates are low. They were pretty low when I got my mortgage; I could have gotten 5.4% from my credit union. Instead I got the 5 +1 ARM at a rate of 5%. Not much difference, right? Well, that depends on your definition of "not much."

Being a "starter home," my house was not expensive, and I live in an inexpensive area for homes as well. My mortgage after down payment was about $111,000. So how much difference does 0.4% make on a loan that small? 2 years into the loan, I've saved almost $1,000 in interest. That may seem trivial compared to the value of the loan, but $1,000 is $1,000. If you could save $500 per year with no trouble, you'd do it, right?

By the end of the 5-year fixed portion of the loan, the difference is about $3,000. I probably won't be in the house for another year, much less 3, so my real savings will be less than that. But money is money, and that's cash I can put in my Roth IRA or use to pay down my car loan. Here's the kicker, though . . . if I had to stay in the house past 5 years, I could afford the increased payment. I knew that going in and I wouldn't have gotten an ARM otherwise. That is where too many people dropped the ball.

Like everything, an ARM has its place. In my case, it has saved me $1,000 and counting. But for thousands of other Americans, it has been misunderstood, misused, and abused, and many people are now in big trouble. The bottom line? Don't bite off more than you can chew. If it adds up in your favor, go ahead and use the riskier ARM. Just be sure you can handle it if things don't go as you expect. Do your homework. Use common sense.