Hello! Long time lurker, first time posting.
Life Situation: Married, 28/30, No kids. He is in school full time (pursing engineering bachelors), I'm in grad school part time (engineering masters).
Gross Salary/Wages:
Me: $66,300
Him (Part time, variable income): $10K
(Monthly: $5525/$850)
Individual amounts of each Pre-tax deductions 401k, HSA, FSA, IRA, insurance, etc:
401K(with 1.5% match): $383
HSA: $292
Insurance: $257
Adjusted Gross Income (2019): $60,337
Taxes: Federal, state/local, and FICA: Monthly Federal: $323, FICA: $309, State: $191, Medicare: $72
Take-home Monthly: $3781(me)/$400-$800 (him)
Current expenses (monthly average over 2019):
Food/Dining (includes eating out, bars, networking dinners, treating family, etc. Need to break out more): $1,500
Travel (family lives around the globe, we travel a lot): $1,184
Shopping (includes buying things for house, clothing, gifts, sports/fitness, etc): $500
Education (Tuition, books, etc): $500
Bills (internet, cell phones, electric, etc): $325
Medical (surgery last year): $500
Average spending per month: $5500
Assets:
Primary house market value: $175,000,
401K (his): $83,128,
401K (mine): $9,655,
Cash: $12,775
HSA: $2,667
Company Stock: Currently worth nothing, could be worth 100-500K if we sell.
Debts: None
We have lived a non-traditional lifestyle of work hard, play harder for the last 10 years (example, we flipped a house in our early 20s leading us to be mortgage free right now). I currently work as an engineering project manager for a start up biotech company (have for >3 years), and my husband is going back to school studying engineering. We feel the need to grow up a bit and start taking our finances more seriously. So we have put an offer in on another project house for $380K.
Specific Questions:
1) Our broker says the mortgage rate we have locked in (3.25%) is for a $350K loan. We can use our cash + our home equity line of credit for the additional $30K if we cannot talk the sellers down based on repairs needed. For reference, fixed houses in the area go for 410K-475K. HELOC rate for current house is 1.49% until July, then goes to 4.02%. We can take up to 80K from this line for repairs on new house. Does this seem like a reasonable financing option?
2) We are trying to decide between renting our current house (approx $1,200/month) and selling it. The area is gaining about 10% per year so it seems like a shame to sell right now without trying out being landlords.
3) It's probably unwise...but we have thought about living off our HELOC for the next few months while maxing out my 401K now that the market is down. Talk us out of this?