Submitted by TheRealMrsVakarian t3_11chdk8 in personalfinance
My husband and I are considering the possibility of buying a second house for my mother in law. She has roughly $20k in savings, and makes about $40k a year, with not much potential to increase her salary significantly. Given her situation, I don’t see her being able to afford a house in this area (metro Atlanta) on her own, and she’ll be at the mercy of the rental market ‘forever’, or have to move far away from her kids/grandkids.
My husband and I recently received promotions and are now making about $190k a year combined. We got quite lucky several years ago and were able to purchase a house, which we refi-ed two years ago, so now we have 2.375% on $220k. We have roughly $90k in savings, although $30k of that is allocated to emergency fund, and other specific purposes. $30k is invested in a brokerage, but right now that fund has a loss and my vote is to pull the money out toward a second house.
We have very little debt overall. About $10k in student loans, although I’m still in school and about $9k of our allocated funds are set aside in a HYSA to cover the loans when the time comes. Otherwise, we have maybe $3k in credit card loans at 0% that we are paying off.
Since we just both received promotions, we’ll have about $1800 extra a month coming in, and we can move some other funds around in the budget to get about $2600 a month available.
I believe that between the savings and what we have monthly we could afford a second house at around $230k. The house would be in our name, we’d put a substantial amount as a down payment (maybe $60k including $10k from MIL) and then ‘rent’ the house to my MIL. She could only afford a portion of the mortgage, so we would be covering the rest, maybe a 65/35 split.
My rough plan would be for us to continue to save for the next 6 – 12 months to offset the hit to our savings and keep an eye out for good rates and a good house that MIL wants and can stay in for as long as she wants. I’m thinking the house would be a decent investment for us, and obviously the benefit of my MIL having a stable living situation. There are obviously risks and factors to consider, like how will maintenance and house ‘emergency’ expenses be handled, but overall I think we’ll have enough savings and room in our budget to handle unexpected related expenses. My husband is nervous at the idea of ‘spending’ so much of our existing savings and the overall financial obligation of this idea, and I’m curious what the pf community thinks. Is this risky or a decent strategy for us and MIL? I’m also not sure what the tax implications are. We are ‘renting’ the house, but at a lower rate than full cost, so we’re not making any income in the situation.
Edit: Forgot to mention Hubby and I have roughly $300k in 401k. We contribute and will be increasing our contributions over the next few years. I have to go, but I really appreciate the feedback, considerations and input.