Refinancing my consumer loan

Ohhh, I like that game!

I can’t tell you how to get rich quickly, but I can tell you how to get poor quickly: by trying to get rich quickly.

Kostolany

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We are talking about a very very unrelistic risk in this case. Yes, I may loose my job at the same time that a financial crisis occur, but do you see a switzerland where they would suppress the two years unemployement benefit anytime soon ?
That’s very unlikely to me and even so we are talking about a crisis that would let even the more carefull of us pennyless.

I feel like i need to read Kostolany :rofl:

Based.

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This.

Correct, but guess how I got well capitalized…

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How many years did you refine your approaches before jumping in? Did you already have housing covered then?

Sorry for the rethorical questions. :grin:

I’ve yet to find a user of this expression who I didn’t consider a fool, sooner or later.

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I never stopped learning and therefor refining my approaches. But after 45 years in the markets my methods are almost of stealth. But I never refuse to learn something new.

My first apartment I bought 1992 with gains from Canadian junk bonds that I bought mainly on credit. If I remember correctly…

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Probably he will be President of New Zealand.

:rofl:

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I don’t get it, need a puzzled emoji.

hang on… the OP is about to buy a flat and has (will have) maximal a mortgage. Said OP further wants to buy share on leverage? Isn’t buying Real Estate at Highest Possible Valuations in the last 35 years, this with max mortgate - isn’t that risk enough?

From an execution point of view, OP doesn’t get why taking out a leveraged ETF (which could with monthly “amortisations” be de-leveraged aka constantly converted into normal ETFs)… was a cheaper and lower risk solution than taking out a consumer loan at 5.X%…

Conclusion: Questionable Strategy with extremely high risk (Leverage and Timing when the positions are taken) plus Questionable competence in executing such strategy. I wish you good luck and hope that you won’t end up with a couple of 100k in the negative zone.

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It’s functionally the same, though. Selling assets and investing your income on the side or not selling assets and having that less of income to invest.

Sure!

Let’s say you borrow 60k with a 5 years (60 months) consumer loan at 5.95% interest p.a (because Cembra gives me a total costs value for that case): CHF 9252 of total cost for a payment of CHF 1154.20 per month.

Stocks return 5.95% p.a. in CHF to make it even (I wouldn’t make that assumption but for the sake of the argument, let’s make it), or 0.485% per month (let’s round it up and make it compound monthly).

You have 2k per month of extra income to invest (or to use to amortize your debt).

At the end of the 5 years:

  • investing your 2k monthly without taking on debt, you have CHF 141’570.
  • taking on Cembra’s personal loan and using your 2k monthly to repay it and invest the remainder, you have CHF 141’622.

So, yes, you have CHF 52 more after 5 years but you also have taken on more risk and non-linear returns for stocks can change the maths.

You’ll be able to make the payments on your debt from your salary alone for as long as you keep your job. If you loose it, the unemployment payment of 70% (80% if you have children) would very likely make it unachievable under those terms (saving 2k after expenses and taxes).

We can evaluate how much an investment in a 2x leveraged ETF without consumer debt would have made under these assumptions. I consider it moot since stocks don’t return 5.95% year in and year out but volatility has to be accounted for (for the record, I don’t recommend investing in leveraged ETFs on a general basis. Each investor should make their own assessment to determine if leverage is desirable for them and how to get it if applicable).

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I start to understand now why my one and only CHF 300 p2p credit may have defaulted

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It’s hard to follow. So you got good revenue and could buy property as recent graduate, but young skilled people have it difficult?
Out of curiosity, how and what kind of place could you buy? With how many % of mortgage?

It just sounds wild to scoff at 2% from a probably still very small pension fund, buy property at young age at today prices (with several 100k of mortgage debt?) and yet happily take a 6% consumer loan in CHF to invest.

I understand it’s not what you asked and as financial management graduate your math and logic must check out. But with all that other info, what else do you expect than recommendations to get rid of that consumer loan as fast as possible? If you look for ways to refinance now, I guess you could also pay back early?
Then built up your assets and go for margin loan or increase your mortgage, if you must.

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Btw it’s fairly easy to run a simulation of outcome given returns + volatility.

From what I’ve seen, you’d need returns well above 5% compared to a monthly DCA of the loan payment for it to make sense.

(And the outcome range if obviously much wider in the loan scenario, so you don’t seem to be compensated for the extra risk)

(And 5% is obviously somewhat optimistic prediction anything lower and it’s a losing proposition)

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Functionally the same yes and no, in my personal situation I had just started really saving money and building wealth (before I finished my studies and worked 3 years in limited duration contrats spending my savings in rent when i didn’t had jobs, now i’m in a fixed postion.

I have similar yet no exact results (1000CHF more). I’d like to share the excel depreciation table I use but i don’t see how to include non image documents on here …

The thing is, at the time of the loan I didn’t assume similar yield but higher yield (averaging 7.1%, the current income is beating my predictions).

We are in a frugalist blog so we have good saving habits… if I was like the average 30 years old I could barely afford my rent …
I do have good revenue slightly above to the switzerland mean revenue yet I’m in a position where i’m under qualified and could do a better job than some of my hierarchy (coming to me for help for basic maths or IT issues even though i’m in the accounting area …).
So, it’s difficult to find a decent paying job matching my skillset, most of the 30 years old couldn’t afford a home (inheritance and family help excluded) and most of my fellow graduates can’t even think about a car or a third pillar … Young skilled people have it difficult.

I’m buying a flat, not a home in Olten 3.5 rooms with 78.35% mortgage because the bank is valuing the property cheaper despite me buying it 7.5% cheaper as listed. I work in Bern and there’s no way i could buy anything there. That’s a 305k mortgage debt.

Whereas my pension fund I started investing in 2020, until end of 2024 I was in break even, it would have been the same to just save it under the matress… my third pillar and own funds where wayyy better.
So I said to myself : “why not use it to buy my flat and never pay rent anymore ?”
Even tough the real estate market may not outperform the pension fund the difference in my monthly spendings will pay for it…

It’s called optimisation :rofl: I’m also assuming the 6% loan will bring me 2% all expenses accounted for … just as @cubanpete_the_swiss figured if I could grab this extra 1-2% why not do it ?

As well my pension fund will yield better performance if we account for the monthly savings in a flat than in my pension fund invested in crappy bonds for some political reason …

Yes, if I sell my assets I could paying back and exit with a benefit due to current market outcome.
My question was not about if I should stay in or get out, i’m happy about this outcome, but just to get tips to have a better interest rate with consumer debt, small banks, P2P lending, other countries, etc…
As well I can’t get enough lombard to pay it.

May I had that having this monthly payement and having to commit to it may also psychologically help and prevent from lifestyle inflation… underestimated but huge plus !

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Yes it’s optimistic but hey … loosing 10% of the total monthly payment isn’t that big … it’s a risk I can live with and holding it one more year will probably make up for it :grin:

Here’s mine: [link edited out so that it doesn’t stay here forever]

You cannot edit it but can download a copy and edit it from there. My bet is the difference comes from how we set the starting conditions (available capital at start) or 1 monthly payment of the loan.

I was talking about once you’ve taken on the debt, if the payments toward it come from your salary (new inputs) that’d you’d invest otherwise or from the invested capital. There is a difference in fees and probably in taxes but barring that, it’s functionally the same thing.

The most efficient and strictly better tool would be options (properties: long, call, DITM, LEAP, index). The excess financing (against gross index & money returns) will be markedly lower, at about a third for 3x leverage (2%), if you can’t wait and buy from the market maker. You can not lose more than what you paid for this instrument. No distributions, no taxes. Also no additional volatility decay like LETFs, and as such comparable to a consumer loan. Somewhat chunky for smaller investment sums.

Much simpler to understand and navigate are LETFs. Excess expenses (against the same gross benchmarks) comparable to options. Volatility decay is factored in in the above but behaves somewhat differently than the options / consumer loan.

Both are are better than a consumer loan for anything than huge leverage: E.g. net worth of 1 CHF against a consumer loan of 1000 CHF (for a total of 1001 CHF) gives you 1001x leverage. But this picture is of course a bit misleading. Still, at such low asset values, working and saving more is the better investment of time.

I have a bit more than that and I still think the time invested in optimizing and learning has a worse return than just working more (the saving side is going to be difficult, as expenses are already very low, but of course not impossible).

I hope this hobby of number-go-up will become a more competitive use of time later.

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I don’t get this but it sounds interesting.