Selling vanguard funds

[TheBeeKeeper]

I have in a taxable vanguard account about 25K in stock index fund (VTSAX) and 15K in international stock index fund (VTIAX)
we are planing on building a house , and will need these 40K in the next 4-6 months, so I've been planing on selling these soonish.

Is it a good idea to sell it all now and avoid short -term fluctuations? or wait and take the risk?
I'm a newbie with Vanguard, and never sold since started to invest about 2 years ago.
I see in the VTSAX I have 'unrealized gains' of about 3K, and in the international loss of about 1K. Should I care about this at all, or just go ahead and sell the lump sum?

Thanks!!

[seattlecyclone]

Is it a good idea to sell it all now and avoid short -term fluctuations? or wait and take the risk?

If it went down 20%, how would that affect your plans to build your house? Would you have to delay your plans or scrap them altogether? Would you have to build something less nice than what you are currently planning? If any of that is true, you should probably sell now because your stock could certainly go down 20% (or more!) in the next few months. That said, the stock market tends to outperform other investments, so if you're willing to take a risk and be flexible if the market goes down, that's a valid choice as well.

I'm a newbie with Vanguard, and never sold since started to invest about 2 years ago.
I see in the VTSAX I have 'unrealized gains' of about 3K, and in the international loss of about 1K. Should I care about this at all, or just go ahead and sell the lump sum?

If you sell all of your VTSAX you'll owe capital gains tax on $3k of income, while if you sell the VTIAX you'll be able to take a $1k capital loss deduction on your taxes. If you need the whole sum you'll just need to sell it all and pay the taxes. Not much choice there. If you only need part of the money you might be better off selling the international stock first to defer the capital gains on your VTSAX until later.

[TheBeeKeeper]

If it went down 20%, how would that affect your plans to build your house?

good question. I'll probably  get a higher mortgage and pay into it when the fund will go up again, hoping it won't take too long..

you might be better off selling the international stock first to defer the capital gains on your VTSAX until later.

What is the advantage of deferring capital gains if I end up paying it anyway in a few months?

 

[seattlecyclone]

What is the advantage of deferring capital gains if I end up paying it anyway in a few months?

If it's all in the same year it doesn't really matter. If you might keep some of these shares for years, it's generally better to sell the less-appreciated ones first.