Poll: Bitcoin or Bordeaux?

[JimHow]

If you had $100,000 and could only invest in one.
Yes, I realize I'm leaving options out.

[OrlandoRobert]

Real Estate. All day long.

My beach place has gone up about 50% in 18 months. While other assets carry possibilities of hire return, they also carry the risk of calamity. My only calamity - hurricanes - is insured. Plus, I get to use it most weekends.

My developer clients make small fortunes. If only I had their balls!

[DavidG]

+1 to real estate. Unless it gets washed away or falls down, it’ll always have value.

Why no stock index fund, etc.?

[JimHow]

Yes I intentionally left out the stock market, 401(k)s, etc., seems to me that would be more obvious.

[JoelD]

What's the time horizon? And what percentage of this person's total net worth is it?

[jal]

Bordeaux
Bitcoin is a crapshoot
1 year CD is ridiculous, might as well stay in cash
Leaves real estate but it's gone up too much too fast. And I always disliked that as an asset class. Too many unforeseen expenses, illiquid, valuation is very subjective.
So the winner is First Growths Bordeaux, worse case scenario, i can share with friends over a nice dinner

[Dandersson]

I also went with Bordeaux for $100.000 Jacques.
The way I see it, I would use it as my retirement wine fond.

Best, Dan

[JimHow]

Hmmm I think Comte agrees with you guys.

[stefan]

Bordeaux. No contest. 2 1/2 houses are more than I need, but I do not have enough Bordeaux for all of them.

[DavidG]

I don’t fit inside a bottle, or even a a case, of Bordeaux. Also, no running hot/cold water, flush toilets, or kitchen.

[Blanquito]

Houses are a huge PITA, especially the secondary ones.

[Racer Chris]

I would spend the money on vacation property in a desirable location. Then I would hire a management company to keep it in good condition and occupied most of the year at a fair rental rate.
My wife knows real estate and we have friends who already do the same with their vacation homes.

[DavidG]

I would spend the money on vacation property in a desirable location. Then I would hire a management company to keep it in good condition and occupied most of the year at a fair rental rate.
My wife knows real estate and we have friends who already do the same with their vacation homes.

We did exactly that with our place in Ocean City until we retired, at which point we had the time to use it more often and stopped renting.

OTOH, renting Peggy’s Baltimore apartment when we first moved in together resulted in dealing with a psycho property manager and a disturbing exposure to the criminal justice system.

[DavidG]

Houses are a huge PITA, especially the secondary ones.

True. Had a plumber and an HVAC guy out last week, and thought we might need an electrician too until I was able to fix that one. Why we went condo with a board and management team on top of their game for our secondary place.

[OrlandoRobert]

Houses are a huge PITA, especially the secondary ones.

True. Had a plumber and an HVAC guy out last week, and thought we might need an electrician too until I was able to fix that one. Why we went condo with a board and management team on top of their game for our secondary place.

LOL, all of them can be PIAs at time!

In the last week, we’ve had a plumber out twice to our beach place, had to deal with the dryer, disposal and dishwasher. In the main home, just had to fix the dish

water and the refrigerator ice machine. And our property insurance at the beach went up 94% and the HOA dues went up 30%. Yay!! My “serenity now” is that the house value increase has far outstripped the costs!

And you can’t put a price on this….

[DavidG]

Gorgeous shot, beautiful dogs.

Got hit with a $5,000 assessment and a 3% increase in condo fees for our beach place. First in over 10 years so can’t complain. Insurance rates have been almost flat. I guess we’re far enough north that hurricane risk is not as high as in FL. That, and we haven’t had any buildings collapse…

[OrlandoRobert]

Gorgeous shot, beautiful dogs.

Got hit with a $5,000 assessment and a 3% increase in condo fees for our beach place. First in over 10 years so can’t complain. Insurance rates have been almost flat. I guess we’re far enough north that hurricane risk is not as high as in FL. That, and we haven’t had any buildings collapse…

David that day was indescribably beautiful. I woke early, felt motivated to fish off the beach so walked down to the sand. I could tell the morning was evolving beautifully so I texted my wife to bring the dogs down. Sun was rising like this, and I was catching Mackeral and Jacks left and right. I saw a couple of huge tarpon do the body roll right in front of me but could not get them interested in a fight.

[DavidG]

Robert, one of my favorite memories is Tarpon fishing from Ft. Myers with my brother. It was a fairy-tale morning like in your shot. We hired a guide to go out for a half day just for redfish or whatever. We get to the marina and the guide goes "The Tarpon are running, and I know where they are." The majesty of those fish jumping was jaw dropping. Neither of us was prepared for that first hit, but we had multiple on the line and we each got a few to the boat.

I pushed for a beach place along the Gulf Coast between Sarasota/Bonita but my wife wisely pointed out that we’d use a place we could drive to a lot more often than one we had to fly to. Even if the weather is too cold to enjoy the beach 4-5 months a year.

[OrlandoRobert]

Robert, one of my favorite memories is Tarpon fishing from Ft. Myers with my brother. It was a fairy-tale morning like in your shot. We hired a guide to go out for a half day just for redfish or whatever. We get to the marina and the guide goes "The Tarpon are running, and I know where they are." The majesty of those fish jumping was jaw dropping. Neither of us was prepared for that first hit, but we had multiple on the line and we each got a few to the boat.

I pushed for a beach place along the Gulf Coast between Sarasota/Bonita but my wife wisely pointed out that we’d use a place we could drive to a lot more often than one we had to fly to. Even if the weather is too cold to enjoy the beach 4-5 months a year.

That is a great story, David. Those are some of the most powerful fish in the ocean, catching one is a true treat. The big ones are physically exhausting, it is a brawl, a slugfest to land one.

Your wife is completely correct on the value of a vacation home. It’s value is directly related to how often you can use it and how easily you can get to it. We had a vacation home in the mountains, But it took nine hours to drive there, which means we used it very seldomly. Our beach house is 1.5 hours away from our main house, which means we can pop in and out whenever we want, and we use it quite a bit.

[DavidG]

Robert, one of my favorite memories is Tarpon fishing from Ft. Myers with my brother. It was a fairy-tale morning like in your shot. We hired a guide to go out for a half day just for redfish or whatever. We get to the marina and the guide goes "The Tarpon are running, and I know where they are." The majesty of those fish jumping was jaw dropping. Neither of us was prepared for that first hit, but we had multiple on the line and we each got a few to the boat.

I pushed for a beach place along the Gulf Coast between Sarasota/Bonita but my wife wisely pointed out that we’d use a place we could drive to a lot more often than one we had to fly to. Even if the weather is too cold to enjoy the beach 4-5 months a year.

That is a great story, David. Those are some of the most powerful fish in the ocean, catching one is a true treat. The big ones are physically exhausting, it is a brawl, a slugfest to land one.

Your wife is completely correct on the value of a vacation home. It’s value is directly related to how often you can use it and how easily you can get to it. We had a vacation home in the mountains, But it took nine hours to drive there, which means we used it very seldomly. Our beach house is 1.5 hours away from our main house, which means we can pop in and out whenever we want, and we use it quite a bit.

Yes, it took a good hour or more to get them in. Guide said they looked around 60-70 #. Big for us but not huge for Tarpon.

…

Postus interruptus - had to go sign for a case of BAMA - Yippee!

…

So a 1.5 hour drive is a piece of cake, even for a day trip or staying one night. Ours is 2.5 hours. We’d go Friday and return Sunday when we were working, leaving after 8pm to avoid the weekend beach traffic. Now we usually go during the week.

It is sooo relaxing even to just sit on the deck listening to the surf and staring out at the ocean. Did you buy a boat? If that was a poll choice I’m certain it would get no votes. That’s one rabbit hole I’m steering clear of. I’d rather spend the money hiring one out than the time and aggravation of maintaining one. Now if we could afford staff to do that…

[JimHow]

This ended up being quite an interesting little poll.
I really should just sell my real estate and retire tomorrow.

[DavidG]

Curious how you wrap up a legal career like yours when you’re a one-man shop. Do you stop taking clients and see the current ones through? I imagine that could take years. Help them find another attorney? Sell to another firm?

[Claudius2]

Guys
I would not buy Bitcoin - it really is a crapshoot.
Sure, many have made a lot of money trading it but that as you all know is no guarantee of future gains, and recently it has gone down a lot.

For USD1M I would buy real estate back in my home country and if there was anything left over, I'd select stocks with a real track record of earnings (so I can actually get a real dividend every year) rather than startups, speculative stocks or whatever is being pumped up on social media.

However, if I was a bit younger I would happily buy first and second growth Bordeaux plus maybe some right bank wines.
I wonder though if the value growth over the last 20-30 years is sustainable. I don't think ten fold increases since say, late 80's will happen for some years.

[JimHow]

Curious how you wrap up a legal career like yours when you’re a one-man shop. Do you stop taking clients and see the current ones through? I imagine that could take years. Help them find another attorney? Sell to another firm?

Indeed, David, it’ll take a good 1-2 years to wind down my practice. After I get past the Alaska case I’ll pretty much stop taking new clients and then just work on my existing caseload until I’m 65.

[AKR]

Houses are a huge PITA, especially the secondary ones.

True. Had a plumber and an HVAC guy out last week, and thought we might need an electrician too until I was able to fix that one. Why we went condo with a board and management team on top of their game for our secondary place.

LOL, all of them can be PIAs at time!

In the last week, we’ve had a plumber out twice to our beach place, had to deal with the dryer, disposal and dishwasher. In the main home, just had to fix the dish77FFDC8F-DE80-4009-844F-1F7C4D212B6D.jpegwater and the refrigerator ice machine. And our property insurance at the beach went up 94% and the HOA dues went up 30%. Yay!! My “serenity now” is that the house value increase has far outstripped the costs!

And you can’t put a price on this….

We bought a house where the prior owners had 3 Golden Shepherds at once. It's amazing how much destruction they seemed to cause, so I have given up on repairing all that random stuff, given that our GSD - when he was a puppy - only added to the gnawing.