So what was this?
Rant VIII: The Reckoning
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GasBandit
Staff member
It was a live shooter drill.
He's not kidding.
Well, I guess they like me after all. I just got my management bonus, and it was, uhm, very generous.
But since this is the rant thread: I gotta spend a chunk of it ejecting birds from my attic, figuring out where they came in, and patching/grating it off.
Dave
Staff member
It was indeed about the live shooter drill. Why he and I were the only two in the university that was asked this question is still a bit perplexing. Someone has surmised that it's because we're the only two from our "team" that is on this side of the building and they wanted to make sure that we knew where we were supposed to go.
But my whole problem with the whole thing, is why the FUCK couldn't she just say that instead of acting all cagey when I asked her what it was about?
Her: Are you going to be here Friday?
Me: Yup. Why? Is there something I need to know?
Her: No. Just wondering. Is John going to be here? I need him to call me.
Me: He said he was. Is everything okay? Does this affect me?
Her: Um...probably.
Me: ...
Why do that kind of thing? It's insane. "Does this affect me?" "Well, it's about the shooter drill on Friday. No big deal." "Cool."
Was that so fucking hard, Dixie?!?
Had an opportunity to go do something cool at work.
Rejected because my current performance is not up to expectations in areas that LITERALLY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE COOL STUFF.
“Yes we know you are amazing at tying shoes one-handed, nobody ties one-handed shoes more effectively than you, and this 3-month one-handed shoe-tying seminar you want to attend looks like it would really give you a chance to shine, but we don’t want to submit your name for consideration until you show some noticeable improvement in bottle cap stacking, because someone of your abilities should really be stacking bottle caps at a level approaching that of your peers.”
Hell, if you think everyone needs to be able to do everything at the same level of skill, then I NEVER want to be part of your D&D party.
—Patrick
Rejected because my current performance is not up to expectations in areas that LITERALLY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE COOL STUFF.
“Yes we know you are amazing at tying shoes one-handed, nobody ties one-handed shoes more effectively than you, and this 3-month one-handed shoe-tying seminar you want to attend looks like it would really give you a chance to shine, but we don’t want to submit your name for consideration until you show some noticeable improvement in bottle cap stacking, because someone of your abilities should really be stacking bottle caps at a level approaching that of your peers.”
Hell, if you think everyone needs to be able to do everything at the same level of skill, then I NEVER want to be part of your D&D party.
—Patrick
B
BErt
It looks like the Toys r Us Brazelton thread was lost in the time warp, so im posting here:
https://boingboing.net/2018/06/03/are-there-no-workhouses-6.html/amp
Fuck you, TRU investors. Fuck you, system that allows this to be “legal.” And Fuck You David Brandon, for being the public face of this shit. The disgusting, punchable public face.
I hate that i invested any time or love to this place to where all these years later i can feel this sick about it.
https://boingboing.net/2018/06/03/are-there-no-workhouses-6.html/amp
Fuck you, TRU investors. Fuck you, system that allows this to be “legal.” And Fuck You David Brandon, for being the public face of this shit. The disgusting, punchable public face.
I hate that i invested any time or love to this place to where all these years later i can feel this sick about it.
Evil, corrupt, and inhuman.
holy fuck - we looked into buying a house. jesus. it all feels like a scam. maybe renting is the better option.
I'm sure there are people here who have more experience than I do (and/or who were sober during their housing purchase), but may I ask what exactly feels like a scam? What loan options/lending programs have you looked into? Where are you looking to buy (general region)?
Realty is a scam and realtors are the scam artists, however it's how the industry works, and while we've done buyer to buyer before it's tough and generally you just live with it.
The mortgage industry is not as bad, but some lenders and some mortgage types are very unfair to the buyer.
Lots of us here have experience in this area, though, so it might be worth discussing your concerns if you'd like a little more insight.
OK, what are YOU doing that it's any different than what you say? http://www.amortization-calc.com/ is a simple way to see what's happening, and how you're paying things off. What's "special" about the words "amortization schedule" when you say them?
I assume he means the way it's front-loaded to give you minimal ownership of the house rather than a consistent balance of principle + interest each month. They don't try to hide it or anything, but it definitely makes it worse for the borrower.
There are a few items that bug me. I am super new to this. I've never tried to buy a house so it was all pretty new. I don't know about the rest of the U.S., but here they have something called Due Diligence and Earnest Money. They are both sort of $$ you hand over to show that you are serious about buying the house. If after inspection, you find that the house has foundation issues or hidden mold or some other super-costly problem and decide to back out, you lose the due diligence money. The realtors that we have spoken to suggest that we would need to put up at least 2k to be a contender in this competitive market. If it all works out then that money goes to closing costs, which is fine, but what a stupid gamble. I guess a 2k problem is better than a 20k or 200k problem.
I also don't get the land survey thing. If the house is less than 20 yrs old (which almost all the ones we are looking at) then there should be existing documentation of this. Why should it change? I guess it is possible that the neighbors could be encroaching on the property is some way, but realistically what is the prospective homeowner to do? We should be able to look at the original survey when the house was built or when it was last purchased.
Then, the realtor said that it is a hot market and multiple offers are normal, and that will likely drive the price about asking price. What would stop a unscrupulous sellers' agent from trying to drive up the price, but telling the buyers' agent that there are other better offers.
Ugh. It seems like putting an awful lot of trust in other folks which I am not very good at.
Yeah, it's just a thing that has become accepted practice, but it is obviously slanted to maximize the money the lender can collect over the life of the loan. Suddenly get a twenty thousand dollar windfall and apply it towards the mortgage? That's great, it will cut payments off the tail end of the loan, but since your interest amounts have all been scheduled in advance, you will still owe interest based on how much you would've owed at this point rather than what you do still owe.
--Patrick
--Patrick
I thought you are allowed to pay extra in a month and have all that go to principle (I have never bought a house).
GasBandit
Staff member
You can. But you still pay the amount in interest that you would have paid if you *hadn't*, I think, is the gist. At least, until the entire balance is paid.
GasBandit
Staff member
The good ol' Redneck Retirement Plan: Lottery tickets.
A friend of mine once told me something that re-framed that implied "Lottery/Gambling is for people who suck at math and/or are stupid." Lottery is a tax on desperate people who like the fantasy of the possibility that they would win and solve all their problems.
@drawn_inward most of that stuff seems like total bullshit. I'm glad I'm not in your market.
@PatrThom I'm not sure that's how that works. But either way, the "curve" of interest vs principal that the website I linked isn't determined by big greedy banks, that's how compound interest works for paying it off. Mathematically it doesn't work any other way. If you are in a zero fee (other than interest) environment, it will draw exactly the same curve, the only variables being the percent interest, and the timespan. The curve alteration is just from the math involved, not "evil banks" or anything related to front-loading interest. That's just the pure math of it.
Here's some curves of the default 5.25%, 25%, and then 1% interest rates, all 30 year:
Red line is percent of total principal left.
So the rates really do matter, and if you want to put some more graphs on there, the duration matters quite a lot too. The "real" scam is making 30+ year mortgages legal. In every other way though, it IS a "regular loan" for the most part.
The realtors will all tell you that you need to spend more, and try to raise the price. Remember that they get a % of the total sale price, so it's not in their interest to get you a good deal.
I'd skip diligence altogether. If your market requires it, maybe, but the reality is that all it does is give you a slight edge over other offers if lots of people want the same house. If the house has been on the market longer than a week, though, then it's unlikely to need extra edges - no one's fighting over it.
The trick is to not get attached to a house. If you get it, great, if not - move on and await the next "right fit". Realtors will work hard to get you attached to a house to get you in an emotional place where they can more easily manipulate you. Don't give them any levers, tell them what you want and what you're willing to do to get it, and keep bugging them until they find it.
They hate you for it, you're not another easy mark they can get $$$ from with a dozen hours work - they'll actually have to spend time - but they'll do it because they know you'll eventually find and buy one.
Be prepared to take a lot of time, and be patient.
Yeah, we had to worry about Due Diligence money (around here they just called it an inspection), and if we found a problem within 10 days of receiving the inspection report we could recoup our Earnest Money. We did do an inspection, on each property, though we weren't required to do so - and in both cases we were glad we had, even though we had to fork over a little bit of cash upfront. I have no idea why you're being asked to pay for a land survey either, we didn't have to worry about that at all. All we had to do was have a title company check the title and deed and make sure there weren't any outstanding liens on the property (aside from the seller's mortgage) or anything crazy like that, and they did provide survey information, but it wasn't like it was new info, it was old enough to be public record on Zillow.
I don't know that I'd go around advising people not to do the due diligence on properties. I've had two friends get into a lot of trouble by either not bothering with getting inspections done, or by not following up on the recommendations of those inspectors. One found out after the fact that his house only had a foundation under 1/3 of it, and a couple of car jacks under the other 2/3, which came as two separate, but equally un-permitted, additions. There are a lot of people buying in the market right now, and not all of them care if the house has major problems, because they're flippers, or developers, or investors, or handypersons, or some other form of cash buyer.
You do wind up putting a lot of trust in other people, and it is important to find good people. We found a good buyer's agent (stumbled across her, really), whose commission was paid for by the seller (as is the seller's agent's commission). Yes, they do get a better commission if they drive the price up, but you can find good ones who either a) are making enough sales that they can afford to make less per transaction or b) are willing to just overlook a big cut once in a while. If you can find a good buyer's agent, they can tell you what title company to use, inspectors to use, which contractors to use for estimates if the inspection shows a serious deficiency. I have seen it go the other way though - my parents were working a deal where the same agent was representing both them and the seller, and he was driving the price above what the seller was asking so he'd get a better cut. My parents and the seller found out and cut him out of as much of the deal as they contractually could from that point on, and remained fast friends until my parents left the state 13 years later. So it wasn't all bad.
I would recommend, before you dip your toes in the water again, reading up on a few things:
- Buyer's agents, and how to find a reputable one. Use multiple sources when searching, since all of the free review sites' reviews can be manipulated easily, and all of the paid ones seem pretty exorbitantly priced.
- FHA, USDA, HUD, VA (if applicable) lending programs. These can have some additional requirements for the property, the lender, and you; but they can also help weed out a lot of trouble properties and some predatory lenders.
- Real estate laws (what they really say, not what the realtor says they say) in your area.
Always always always do the inspections.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the terms being used - you will be paying for the inspections and those aren’t refunded. But you do that yourself, don’t fork money over to the seller to pay for inspections. Unless your realtor is really shady you can choose your inspector rather than the one they recommend.
But inspection costs should be a fraction of the earnest money, which you’ll get back if the inspections don’t go well.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the terms being used - you will be paying for the inspections and those aren’t refunded. But you do that yourself, don’t fork money over to the seller to pay for inspections. Unless your realtor is really shady you can choose your inspector rather than the one they recommend.
But inspection costs should be a fraction of the earnest money, which you’ll get back if the inspections don’t go well.
Lottery is the possibility of riches. It's perfectly fine to play the lottery and put some money towards a chance to reap mega rewards. Think of it like an extremely risky investment with the potential for a truly spectacular return. It is NOT perfectly fine to play the lottery with money that you should have allocated elsewhere (education funds, food, shelter, etc). Like any investment, lottery playing is something you should do with what's called "risk capital," which is money over and above that required to meet your needs. Even then, the single biggest thing you can do to improve your chance of winning is to buy more tickets, but the diminishing returns on those chances stack up very quickly.
Yes, and you're almost right. You made your post while I was drawing up illustrative graphs. I'm sure there are plenty of places that will go into the difference between simple and scheduled interest, but I'm too lazy to look (but not too lazy to make my own graphs).
Let's say this is what your loan payments will look like over time:
This is of course horribly simplified, but each vertical stripe represents a single payment (only a few dozen for brevity), and the colors represent the proportion of how much of each payment goes towards paying off interest (red) and principal (green). And regardless of whether you go the simple or scheduled route, the graph looks exactly the same...IF you stick exactly what the payment book says every month, that is.
But if you get a windfall (sell a car, tax return, small lottery winning, inheritance, whatever), and you decide to put some extra money towards the loan's principal (which you often have to explicitly specify when you make the payment), you might expect the overall payment history to change to the following:
...and if you were on a simple interest plan, you'd be right. Less principal generates less interest, which means the payment term stays the same but the total amount of each payment will go down for the remainder of the loan (as illustrated above) OR you could continue to pay the same amount as previously and the loan would end early because the interest being generated would not be able to "fuel" the loan's existence for the entirety of the original assumed term.
But when you schedule the interest, this happens:
In this case, you do not realize as much of a savings because the principal payments deleted by the windfall payment are removed from the end of the loan's life, which is the period where the majority of your payment was composed of principal (i.e., "your money") anyway, and so the total of interest "lost" from the missing payments (i.e., "their money") is minimized.
Paying extra money allows you to end a loan early for less total expenditure no matter what kind of loan you have (assuming no prepayment penalty, that is) and is a good stratagem no matter which type of loan you have, BUT my assertion is merely that scheduling the interest allows the lender to "protect" as much of the red area as possible over the entirety of the loan, and my last diagram illustrates this, because the payments the bank has "lost" are always the ones with the least proportion of red.
And while you might think, "Well, the bank would lose the last payments in the simple interest case, too," you're not wrong, but remember that with a simple interest loan, the interest payments are calculated based on what the principal balance is right now, which means that future interest payments are all recalculated downwards if you pay extra, whereas with a scheduled interest loan, all your interest payments are calculated based on what the principal balance was at the time the loan was issued, and so each month's interest is based not on how much principal remains, but instead is pulled from a lookup table that was generated at the time the loan was issued and which will never change until such time as the loan is discharged. In a simple interest loan, the slope of that diagonal line changes in your favor. In a scheduled one, the slope does not. Deleting payments off the beginning of the term lets you keep the most money, deleting payments off the end lets them keep the most money, and scheduling the interest via an amortization schedule ensures that attempts to erode the loan faster by making extra payments are forced to erode those last principal-heavy payments first.
--Patrick
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Thanks for the advice and suggestions! I feel a bit better. It's just a bit overwhelming. I have always been poor, and now that we are doing ok, it's frightening to think that we could screw up and be poor again by making a bad choice.
Loans of the type as described by @PatrThom are flat-out illegal over here. On the other hand, paying off (a part of) your loan early can and does get you a fine, but you know up-front how much it is (usually 2 or 3 months worth of payments), same as re-evaluating your loan or transferring it to another bank. Whether or not it's worth it depends on how much you can pay back - paying $10.000 probably isn't worth it, paying back $100.000 is.
Fascinating. It's standard practice at all the banks we looked at that you can do the following at any time without penalty:
- Double a payment - All of the doubled amount will go towards principal
- Pay up to 5% or 10% per year extra - I can't remember the amount, but it's something like one of those, you can pay into the mortgage in a year, and that's without penalty too. More than that, and there's some type of penalty, but that's in writing ahead of time what the schedule for that is
We do have something similar to what you describe in the States, but here we just call that “a 15-yr mortgage.”
—Patrick
We are definitely more regulated up here and, as the last big recession showed, we are far better regulated, too.
I've been disinclined to get into this discussion because I'm sure my experiences have differed in subtle significant ways.
I'm right there with you. Well, not quite, we're BUILDING our house (my first, her second). My head is spinning. Good thing my girlfriend has done this before and her family has been in the business for decades, or I'd be completely lost.