Housing Market in Flux: Should You Buy Now Before Prices Shift? (Plus: How Teens Can Build Credit)

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Speaker 4 It's home buying season, and if you're either a buyer or a seller, you know that a lot is in flux right now.

Speaker 4 So today we'll take a closer look at the nation's housing market and offer some tips for getting yourself and your finances ready for a purchase or a sale.

Speaker 5 Welcome to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds. I'm Sean Piles.

Speaker 6 And I'm Elizabeth Ayola. Later on in this episode, we're going to be answering a listener's question about how to prepare a teenager to use credit.

Speaker 4 But first, our weekly Money News Roundup, where we break down the latest in the world of finance to help you be smarter with your money.

Speaker 4 As we mentioned, we're in the heart of home buying season, and we're turning it over to our news colleague, Ana Hilhoski, for a chat with our resident housing nerds.

Speaker 7 Today we're talking about the U.S. housing market, where it's headed, and what it means if you're buying, selling, or like me, just perusing Zillow for fantasy homes.

Speaker 7 We have Nerdwald's resident home experts, Holden Lewis Lewis and Kate Wood, here to give us an update. Welcome, Holden and Kate.

Speaker 8 Thank you for having us. Great to see you.

Speaker 7 So I guess the question is, how do you describe the current state of the housing market? What's going on out there?

Speaker 8 To describe it politely, I would say, so for NerdWallet, overall, we would say that the nationwide housing market is like a moderate seller's market. So it's not.

Speaker 8 totally tilted in seller's favor, but also not, you know, terribly easy to be a buyer. But what kind of home prices and inventory you're going to see is really going to depend on where you live.

Speaker 8 And you could see massive variation.

Speaker 9 Well, I just recently sold a house in Texas.

Speaker 9 And from a seller's perspective, it's kind of tipping into a buyer's market there. And I also live in South Florida.
And it is definitely a buyer's market here in South Florida.

Speaker 9 Maybe not so much for houses, but for condos it is for kind of complicated reasons having to do with a law that was passed after the condo collapse near Miami a few years ago.

Speaker 9 People are just trying to unload their condos because they have these massive bills due to take care of lingering repairs. But places like Connecticut, Massachusetts, it's really, really tight there.

Speaker 9 Still totally a seller's market.

Speaker 7 And the places where it is a buyer's market, what exactly is happening there?

Speaker 9 More and more people are listing their homes for sale, but buyers are just having trouble finding a place they can afford with today's mortgage rates.

Speaker 9 And so what what you end up with is more houses are added to the market than buyers buy. And so the inventory of houses keeps climbing.

Speaker 9 We're at a point in some markets where it's more than five months of what they call supply.

Speaker 8 Wait, can I explain supply?

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 8 So when we're talking about whether it's a buyer's or seller's market, like in a technical sense, people will define it as, okay, it's a balanced market when there's like six months of supply.

Speaker 8 What does that mean? So the National Association of Realtors, every month they put out numbers for existing home sales. It excludes new construction, but it includes all existing homes for sale.

Speaker 8 So that means detached single-family homes. That means townhomes.
That means condos, co-ops. If it's for sale, it's in there, right? So months supply is kind of a thought exercise.

Speaker 8 So if we stop the housing market, dead in its tracks, we take every single existing home that's for sale today, and we sell them all at the current pace that homes are selling.

Speaker 8 How many months will it take to sell all of those homes? Oh, fun word problem.

Speaker 8 So it's like a weird thing because it's not like a number of homes because it varies depending on the number of homes, but also the pace of sales.

Speaker 8 So in general, six months should be balanced, more than six months buyer's market, less than six months seller's market.

Speaker 8 Right now, our most recent numbers are from May, and that was a 4.6 month supply of housing. That was up from 4.4 in April and significantly up over 3.8 months last May.
So May 2024.

Speaker 7 Holden, anything else to add?

Speaker 9 Well, there's some markets where it's actually north of six months or five months, like Jacksonville. I think Tampa is up there.
And so I'm sort of revising my thought of what a buyer's market is.

Speaker 9 Is six months balanced? Actually, I think maybe five months might be balanced or tipping toward being a buyer's market. Maybe four and a half months is balanced.

Speaker 9 Times change and that definition of what a balanced market is. I think that that's changing too.
And it's going down from like six to, I don't know, four and a half.

Speaker 7 We mentioned Texas, you mentioned Florida. What places in the U.S.
are seeing home prices that are now in the buyer's favor?

Speaker 9 Austin, San Antonio, Tampa.

Speaker 9 Any others?

Speaker 8 Rust Belt cities, like generally, if you're looking at like top 50 metros, places like Pittsburgh, places like Indianapolis tend to come up as relatively affordable.

Speaker 8 I mean, I would say, like, the buyer-friendliness thing and the price declines, it's very relative because places like Austin or Boise or Denver, these are places that saw massive price run-ups during the pandemic, right?

Speaker 8 As we were seeing this exodus of remote workers drove the housing costs up an incredible amount.

Speaker 8 And so now when you look at those cities, it'll be like, oh my goodness, this is this really significant month over month or year over year price decline, but it's declining from super ridiculous, like how absurd to I still can't do this bad.

Speaker 8 So it's not cheap. It's not a buyer's market, but like, yes, prices are dropping.

Speaker 7 Where are the sellers markets right now then?

Speaker 8 So the seller's markets are most heavily concentrated in the northeastern part of the country. So think New England, but also the tri-state.

Speaker 8 And I know the tri-state means different things to different people, but as someone from Connecticut, to me, what does it mean for you in in Connecticut?

Speaker 8 Tri-state means Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, and there is no other tri-state. I don't know.

Speaker 7 So I would agree, but I'm from New York, and I know some people will say Pennsylvania is in there too.

Speaker 7 It's an argument, I suppose. But yeah, so let's, you know, for argument's sake, just say New England and then the tri-state, not the mid-Atlantic were possibly.

Speaker 8 So yeah, not the mid-Atlantic. Right.
And so this is, again, we had like a lot of pandemic stuff going on, right?

Speaker 8 States like Maine and Vermont saw these really large population influxes that they were deeply unprepared for and then you know in general in the northeast the cities are expensive right new york's a very expensive place boston's a very expensive place people get priced out of those they move further and further out and then when you're in new england this is very different from a place like austin or like a lot of parts of california there's nowhere else to build.

Speaker 8 And so literally just even the space for new construction is just not there in these parts of the country. You're also in a lot of cases looking at much more restrictive zoning.

Speaker 8 And so that's really consistently an issue that there are just a lot of hurdles to building more existing housing, particularly to building a multifamily housing.

Speaker 7 And if you can't build out and you can't build up, there's nowhere to go.

Speaker 8 There's nothing. Yeah.
There's you've got nothing.

Speaker 7 So what's driving some of these inventory shortages? Other than zoning stuff, which, you know, is obviously there.

Speaker 8 Yeah, we hit zoning in many places, just decades of under construction. We've got our venture capitalists who are buying up single-family homes, converting them to rentals.

Speaker 8 Depending where you live, that can be a really big thing.

Speaker 8 And then also something that I find interesting is just that in general, for a pretty long time, the average home ownership tenure has been rising.

Speaker 8 People used to just simply used to move more frequently than they do now. There's also too, if you think about how much interest has grown and aging in place.

Speaker 8 right so the idea that oh i'm going to retire i'm going to move somewhere else or i'm going to downsize for a lot of people it's like no, like, I'm retiring and my goal is to stay right here and like keep living in this house.

Speaker 8 So that's another home that's not going up for sale.

Speaker 8 And then, you know, we also do have people who are in this sort of like best problem to have kind of situation where they've got a really low interest rate on their mortgage.

Speaker 8 They've got a mortgage that's very affordable for them. And so for them to make a lateral move, let alone upgrade, would potentially make homeownership unaffordable.

Speaker 8 And so those people who might want to sell their home for a variety of reasons, might want to relocate, might want a bigger house, whatever, they're just like, I can't do it.

Speaker 9 Yeah. That's particularly a problem with downsizers, you know?

Speaker 9 I mean, someone who's getting old and doesn't want to age in place, or they want to age in place in a place that's smaller and doesn't have a yard.

Speaker 9 They look at the marketplace and they go, okay, so if I sell my house now with a really low mortgage rate and I buy a cheaper house at a higher mortgage rate, my monthly payments are going to go up.

Speaker 9 I don't want to do that. And so that's keeping people in their houses too.

Speaker 7 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And you mentioned mortgage rates.
And one reason that people would want to stay in their homes is because they've locked in a low rate.

Speaker 7 So what's happening with mortgage rates right now?

Speaker 9 They're going up. And, you know, they went down for five weeks in a row.
And that was exciting. But now they've gone up two weeks in a row.

Speaker 9 The employment picture looks pretty strong. We have tariff-driven inflation, and it just doesn't look like any of this is going to break anytime soon.

Speaker 9 So I just don't see mortgage rates going down substantially anytime soon.

Speaker 7 There is always that trade-off between buying now when the mortgage rates are high versus waiting for a correction in the market. So what's your advice?

Speaker 8 The Nerdwell stock advice, please do not try to time the market. Do this when it is right for you.

Speaker 8 So if you are someone who is in a position right now where you can afford to buy a home that you want, like that's going to be comfortable, that's going to work for you, that's going to be viable for the long term, like, my gosh, just do it.

Speaker 8 Waiting or this kind of belief, like, oh, like it's due for a correction, that kind of thing. Mortgage rates are not driven by like gravity or like the forces of nature.
These are markets, right?

Speaker 8 So this is tons of people. It's all these irrational actors making decisions in the aggregation of those decisions.

Speaker 8 You can't predict that. There just isn't a like, what goes up does not have to come down with mortgage rates.

Speaker 9 It's kind of the case with home prices, too. You take an Uber and you talk to the driver, and invariably they're going to say, oh, I'm waiting for the next housing crash.
And it's like, you know what?

Speaker 9 We're not going to have a housing crash. Back in the early 2000s, I was paying attention to this.

Speaker 9 I was writing about mortgages and real estate. And right around 2004, I thought, I think we're in a bubble.

Speaker 9 And, you know, it turned out I was right, even though a lot of housing economists were telling me that I was delusional. Well, I don't think we're in a housing bubble.

Speaker 9 I mean, you know, I look at this situation and go, nope, nope. You're just not going to see a correction where house prices fall like 20%,

Speaker 9 maybe

Speaker 9 in a few isolated markets, but definitely not nationwide, definitely not widespread.

Speaker 7 So the lesson from 2004 is listen to Holden. He knows what he's talking about.
So for anyone who's about to enter the housing market, you could recommend any other strategy.

Speaker 2 What would it be?

Speaker 9 I'll just say be patient, manage your expectations.

Speaker 9 Don't expect to find a house in the first week or two. And when you do find a house, try to keep that exuberance in check.

Speaker 9 I mean, I'm just a real believer in like, don't get too excited about something that you really, really want that very frequently will disappoint you.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. Honestly, I feel like resilience is so important.

Speaker 8 And I think that's also why it's really vital that you work with a real estate agent that you get along with, because you could potentially end up spending a lot of time with this person.

Speaker 8 People go into home searches sometimes thinking, like, oh, this is going to be a couple of weeks. So I sold my home in Connecticut, which again, super hot seller's market last summer.

Speaker 8 And we pulled the listing after four days days because it was like the number of offers is unmanageable, like it's going to be unmanageable. And it's just like, we can just cut it off.

Speaker 8 We'll work with what we've got. The people I sold to, it turned out, had been looking for two solid years of just offer and heartache and offer and heartache.

Speaker 8 Having an agent that you're potentially going to have this like long-term relationship with is really important.

Speaker 8 And that's a little bit different than it used to be, too, because thanks to the National Association of Realtors Settlement last summer, these days buyers' agents are more likely to ask for a formal agreement earlier on.

Speaker 8 So like for you to even see a house, they're likely to want you to sign something.

Speaker 8 That could potentially make it a little bit more hurdles to get rid of that person if it turns out you don't like them. Cause sometimes you're signing on for 30 or 60 days of exclusivity.

Speaker 7 That chemistry matters.

Speaker 7 All right, Kate Wood, Golden Lewis, thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 8 Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 6 Up next, we answer a listener's question about how to prepare your kids for a life with credit. But before we get into that, a reminder to send us your money questions.

Speaker 6 Perhaps you are wondering how to pay for your child's college fund, or you're thinking about how you can save enough for retirement so that you can enjoy your emptiness once your kids leave the house.

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Speaker 10 In a moment, this episode's money questioned. Stay with us.

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Speaker 10 We're back and answering your money questions to help you make smarter financial decisions.

Speaker 10 On this episode of Smart Money, we are joined by Kevin, who has some questions about how to teach your kids about money, including how to help them find the right credit card.

Speaker 10 And we're also joined by one of Kevin's kids, Simon.

Speaker 6 Welcome to Smart Money, Kevin and Simon.

Speaker 2 Thanks for having us. Thank you.

Speaker 6 We want to let you guys know that you are very special because you are the first parent-child duo that we have had on the show before.

Speaker 2 Cool, the first.

Speaker 6 First of all, we'd like to know, how did you all's conversation about money start or when did it start?

Speaker 2 I don't remember when it started.

Speaker 2 I remember when I was quite young, I opened like a kid bank account and you know, they'd send you like monthly coloring books and stuff in addition to like teaching you how money works.

Speaker 2 So that was the first time that I interacted with a bank or anything like that or managing money. So I assume we talked about it some then.

Speaker 8 How old were you?

Speaker 2 I think I was maybe 12. Okay.
Quite young. Yeah.

Speaker 10 Coloring books seem a little bit immature for a 12-year-old, but hey, if you can get a free coloring book, sounds fun.

Speaker 10 And do you remember how you felt or thought about this checking account? Was it just another another thing that your dad was putting on you or were you actually engaged with it?

Speaker 2 I mean, they sent like monthly mailing things. So like I knew it was there, but I wasn't super engaged with it.
I remember like every couple of months, we'd go over there to like deposit money.

Speaker 2 So I remember doing that, but I don't think I thought about it all that much other than just thinking like, okay, it's important to save money. So I'll put money in there to save it.

Speaker 2 It was a little bit hard to access as well. It was at a credit union.
There was no ATM card. Everything had to be in person.

Speaker 2 But if I remember correctly, when you were about 16,

Speaker 2 we took that savings account and we opened you a checking account with that money.

Speaker 6 Simon, I'm curious to know, because I have learned many money lessons just by watching my parents manage money.

Speaker 6 So is there anything that you learned watching your dad and your mom manage money over the years?

Speaker 2 Like they both have a pretty like frugal mindset. So I definitely noticed that and picked up on that.

Speaker 2 Just understanding that it's important to save money and that the more that you let your money sit.

Speaker 2 I mean, I guess this isn't really the case for a checking account or even for most savings accounts, but the more you let your money sit, the more money you'll end up having later on.

Speaker 2 So it's best not to spend all of it and save it for something important. So I'd say like that is kind of the attitude that I picked up on as a kid and then ended up adopting.

Speaker 10 And Kevin, were those the lessons that you were hoping to impart or was there anything else that you really wanted to make sure that your sons learned about managing money from you?

Speaker 2 I think one of the most important things is to understand the difference between a need and a want.

Speaker 2 There's nothing wrong with wanting something and you can want and then you can buy that thing, but you need to recognize that you want it and it might not be needed.

Speaker 6 So Kevin, what are some of the questions that you had for us?

Speaker 2 So what originally started this was my younger son is 18 and he's going to college and I wanted to make sure that he had a credit card in his name, mostly to resist the temptation of opening a bunch of them to sell.

Speaker 2 So I was just going to go to the bank and co-sign with a card. And he said, well, maybe there's something with better perks.

Speaker 10 Very savvy for someone so young.

Speaker 2 Which kind of cracked me up because the limit's going to be, what, like $2,000?

Speaker 2 You're not going to rack up a bunch of flight points for that.

Speaker 2 We did end up just opening an account last week and it was at the bank. You know, it's nothing fancy.
But for me, it ended up being a decision based on convenience.

Speaker 2 It's already a place that I have accounts.

Speaker 2 I have the app. I log in there a few times a week.

Speaker 10 So this is part of establishing and then eventually taking off training wheels for your kids financially.

Speaker 8 Right.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Well, Simon, I have a question for you. How are you budgeting now that you are somewhat financially independent and taking your finances on by yourself?

Speaker 6 How do you manage your money generally? So how did you decide how much? I know your dad gave you some guidance, but how much you're going to invest, how much to save, how much to put towards expenses?

Speaker 2 Well, generally, like. I try to keep my expenses as low as possible.
I don't really spend all that much.

Speaker 2 So, you know, what I have to worry about is mostly just rent and food and education type expenses. But we have a 529 for that.
So I don't have to worry about that quite so much.

Speaker 2 So I just try to keep my expenses as low as possible. And of course, like I live in a pretty big city, so that's not always the easiest thing.
Like rent is pretty high, even for a studio apartment.

Speaker 2 So generally, like. I keep my expenses low, put what I can into savings.

Speaker 2 And then when the time comes during the year when I can put money into the Roth IRA, like this last year, I put maybe like half of the maximum in there just to allow that to start making money, start increasing in value.

Speaker 2 And then the rest of it, I just try to spend as little as I can.

Speaker 6 And if you don't mind sharing, how do you earn income?

Speaker 2 Right now, I don't have a source of income. I'm a student now.
I've been a student for a few years. So I had a work study job.
I'm lucky enough to have this 529 that my parents have set up for me.

Speaker 2 So I actually don't really need to pay for most of my expenses. Like that money is provided for from the 529.

Speaker 10 One thing I'll flag with adding money to an IRA, a Roth IRA or traditional, you do have to have earned income in order to contribute.

Speaker 10 So even if you just have money sitting in a savings account, you can't put more in than you actually received from a job, essentially. So just make sure you do have that amount.

Speaker 10 Otherwise, you might run a foul of the IRS, which no one wants to do. So you're in college now.
When are you expecting to graduate?

Speaker 2 I'm going to graduate next year. I actually, I already graduated.
So I'm getting two degrees. I have a degree in psychology already, which I finished up last November.

Speaker 2 And then I'm getting a second degree, which I'm going to finish one year from August.

Speaker 10 It might seem like a long ways away from from now, but have you thought about how your life financially and personally may change after that? Are you going to move somewhere?

Speaker 10 Are you maybe going to take on some new expenses, start paying off your student loans if you have them?

Speaker 2 At that point, my plan is to go to graduate school. My understanding is that all the student loans that I've taken have actually been subsidized loans.

Speaker 2 So that means that the interest doesn't start accumulating until I'm out of school.

Speaker 2 So if I continue to get an education, then I won't have to worry about paying those off until another six years in the the future but i want to end up moving to the west coast i want to end up in california so i know that like it's quite a bit more expensive to live there in like the bay area it's just way more expensive i'm in denver now it's pretty expensive but it's more expensive there so there will be more expenses but also you know if i'm in a phd program then they provide a stipend so I won't have all that much money to say invest or start managing, but I also won't really have to worry about that as much either because the stipend adjusts to the price of living.

Speaker 10 And Kevin, how are you thinking about this transitional period in Simon's life? Will you be pulling back some financial support?

Speaker 10 Will you be maybe trying to make sure that he has other means of support and is set up with credit cards and checking accounts and all that? What's your thinking?

Speaker 2 He did apply for his own credit card, but I am still co-owner on the one that we originally took out six years ago. And I'm also listed on his checking account.

Speaker 2 He and I have talked about about this, and we're probably going to unravel that this summer.

Speaker 10 You actually may want to keep that connected for some reasons in case you want to easily transfer money back and forth.

Speaker 10 I still have the same checking account joint with my mom that we established when I was in high school. And I essentially only use it now to pay her my part of the cell phone bill.

Speaker 10 So even though I don't really need it and I have my own checking account elsewhere, unless you're paying a lot in fees for it, it might just be a handy thing to hold on to.

Speaker 10 So you don't have to wait for transfers to go go through over a couple of days if you use a payment transfer platform.

Speaker 2 My only worry is that if Simon has tied that account number to various things, if he opens another checking account, that's kind of a hassle to update all those other CERFs.

Speaker 2 So for him to keep the same account number in his own personal use, that kind of makes sense.

Speaker 6 And then also I wanted to know, because you mentioned a joint credit card account as well. Are you thinking of closing that too?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 6 Are you aware of how it might impact your credit score? Is that something you've thought about?

Speaker 2 I'm not personally worried about it.

Speaker 8 Simon might want to. I don't know.

Speaker 2 I don't know how it will impact him.

Speaker 10 Yeah, it may harm Simon's credit because it would likely reduce the amount of available credit that he has overall, as well as the age of his credit.

Speaker 10 So if you aren't paying any fees to keep that account open, which you likely aren't since it's just a pretty early on simple credit card, it seems.

Speaker 10 Yeah, you can just kind of keep it sitting in the background.

Speaker 10 Best practices typically are to have some sort of regular ongoing charge like Netflix or Spotify, something kind of inexpensive that you have on there.

Speaker 10 So you have regular activity, but then make sure you have auto pay set up. So you're paying it off each month without having to worry about it too much.

Speaker 10 That way you can keep that older credit file on your report, which just looks good overall.

Speaker 2 Perfect. That's actually what's happening already.
That's great.

Speaker 8 There you go.

Speaker 6 Simon, you recently opened a new credit card, right?

Speaker 2 I did, yeah.

Speaker 6 So what was your decision-making process in choosing a credit card? What were the most important things to you?

Speaker 2 I don't consider this credit card to be like the card that I'm going to use for like the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 I just wanted something with more credit on it and also a card that, you know, I actually don't know if this is true.

Speaker 2 I just kind of assumed it was, but I assume that if the account is actually only in my name as opposed to mine and my dad's, then it's better for my credit report.

Speaker 10 Having it solely in your name, Simon, doesn't make a big difference. It's treated effectively the same as long as you're paying it off.

Speaker 10 And that can be sometimes a risk if you do have a shared account where if one person misses a payment, the other person who didn't miss that payment would actually pay the price for it on their credit report.

Speaker 10 So it's good hygiene. And I think it's a good step toward financial independence to have your own account.

Speaker 10 How are you making sure you pay it off on time and stay within your credit limit and don't charge things that you can't afford? All of that. What's your thinking behind that?

Speaker 2 I've tried to set it up so I don't have to think about it as much as possible.

Speaker 2 Every month, at the end of the month, I have like a reminder that goes off on my phone and I go and I look at my statement and I pay off the card.

Speaker 2 And as far as actually exceeding the credit limit goes, I don't think that's ever going to happen because the expenses that I put on the card are paying for rent each month, paying for groceries, that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 Unless, I don't know, like I, like I lose two or three trips of groceries somehow or something like that, or I just get really hungry. I'm not going to exceed the limit on the card.

Speaker 6 And I guess as your credit score continues to grow, one of the things that you do want to think about when in the future, maybe you're looking for a credit card is one that gives you the highest value.

Speaker 6 Some credit cards are best for grocery rewards. Some will give you rewards on gas, some on travel.

Speaker 6 So you just want to make sure, especially if you're paying fees, the value that you're getting justifies the fee that you're paying. So I think that's a way to approach looking for credit cards.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And actually, that reminds me, like you asked earlier why I chose this card in particular.
And I remember I saw that it had points for both gas and for groceries.

Speaker 6 Smart.

Speaker 2 I don't know how it compares to other cards as far as how many points you get, but that was one of my considerations. It's like, oh, okay, you know, I'll actually get some points for using this card.

Speaker 6 Well, we have a cheeky plug, of course.

Speaker 6 On NerdWallet, we compare the cards and the different rewards you can get with the different cards, but it can also be helpful to understand how rewards work so that you can maximize the benefits and justify the annual fees, as I said.

Speaker 6 And at NerdWallet, we have a rewards valuation that can help you with that in case you want to look at that to see really how much value you're getting out of these points.

Speaker 10 Kevin, I want to hear a little bit more about your younger son and how you're talking with him about managing his money.

Speaker 10 And if there are any areas where you think you might need a little guidance to give him a little guidance, he's going to go to college in the fall.

Speaker 2 He also has a 529 that's going to cover, and he's living on campus. So most all of his expenses will kind of be hidden.
And this is actually something I should talk to you, Simon.

Speaker 2 Like, what are the first-year college expenses that aren't related to room and board?

Speaker 2 Is there anything?

Speaker 8 Partying.

Speaker 2 Very important. He says

Speaker 2 occasional trip off campus, that sort of stuff. He pays attention a lot.

Speaker 2 So early this spring, I was doing my taxes, and he was right next to me the entire time as I'm going through with all the papers and filling in the forms.

Speaker 2 We haven't yet had the formal talk about how a credit card works and how you should use it because he now has one.

Speaker 2 We'll do that and we'll go through the statements when we come in, show him what they look like.

Speaker 10 The weird thing about the American educational system is that you're 18 and you're suddenly expected to sign up for a massive amount of student loans.

Speaker 10 I know when I was taking on these loans back when I was entering college, I had no idea what paying them off was really going to be like.

Speaker 10 Now here I am in like my mid-30s, trudging through lots of student loans. But I think it's a credit to your parenting that you've kept your kids so engaged.
So pat yourself on the back for that.

Speaker 10 And see if there are other areas where you might want to go deeper. Like, Simon, the fact that you have a Roth IRA or an IRA at all at your early age, 22 is pretty remarkable as well.

Speaker 10 So see, Kevin, how you can maybe set your younger son up with something like that too, just to kickstart saving for retirement.

Speaker 2 Last summer, I did take some of his savings account and we put it in a Robo investment account online. And it was kind of interesting because I'd had him answer all the questions.

Speaker 2 What are your goals? And how do you feel about risk? And all these things. And, you know, we had to talk through some of that.
And he was significantly more risk averse than I expected.

Speaker 6 Where do you think that came from?

Speaker 2 I think he just doesn't understand like risk over time. So this is not money he's going to touch for, I don't know, five years, ten years.

Speaker 2 I think he was much more concerned about the downside than the upside.

Speaker 10 Well, that's actually a great learning opportunity because there can be a risk to being too risk averse when you are that young.

Speaker 10 The idea is that when you are younger, you have all these years for your money to grow. You can take on more risk.
And if you do that, you have higher, greater potential for earnings.

Speaker 10 Whereas if you are really, really conservative with all of your investments at this early age, that may end up being a difference between having a massive nest egg and something that's much smaller in size.

Speaker 10 So I would recommend playing with something like a compound interest calculator. We have one at Nerdwall.

Speaker 10 We can drop a link in the show notes and just seeing how, given a potential rate of return based on different levels of risk, what he's putting in might grow into one size or a different size.

Speaker 2 We have been checking it about once a month, just so you can see what it's doing and we can relate it to the news and be a little in touch with that. That's a great idea.

Speaker 6 Now that your kids are young adults, Kevin, how do you balance letting them maintain financial independence while also guiding them to make good financial choices? How are you balancing that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so

Speaker 2 it's a tough question. I was thinking about buying like a helicopter, actually.
A what a helicopter

Speaker 2 oh fantastic yeah smart investment a little one

Speaker 2 well part of that is trying to like just let go right

Speaker 2 let simon make his own decision but at the same time i want him to know that i'm there to help if something goes wrong right so the engine in the car blows up give me a call and we'll we'll try to figure something out.

Speaker 2 But it's difficult to see them on their own because I'm used to just constantly being there all the time.

Speaker 6 I understand.

Speaker 10 It's a big transition having your kids be out of the house. But one of the best ways you learn your lessons is by the mistakes that you make, especially in your early 20s.

Speaker 10 I think it's actually good to make some financial missteps. I took out my very first credit card to buy an iPhone that I certainly didn't need, but I just wanted.

Speaker 10 So I ended up paying that off over time and I learned about budgeting and needs versus wants through my own little misstep there. It didn't ruin me.
I'm doing great financially now.

Speaker 10 So I think having that up and down is natural.

Speaker 10 But as a parent, I can imagine how creating that space where you can, you know, you could help if you just intervened can be so hard, but it's actually better for you to take that step back.

Speaker 6 And then Simon, what kind of support would you like moving forward from your dad as you navigate your finances on your own?

Speaker 2 I'm getting all the support that I

Speaker 2 need, honestly, and that I'm looking for, because I think I'm going to be in school for a while longer, and that's kind of an investment in its own way.

Speaker 2 But I think having the space to say, okay, like, you know, if my car has some trouble, then I won't have to worry about figuring out how I'm going to pay for that is really nice because it gives me the chance to put my mind on other things, which I think are, at least for me, like me personally, are more important to me right now.

Speaker 2 So I think like having that kind of support is really nice. And it's not like I'm going to take out a giant loan and then buy a a sports car or something like that.

Speaker 2 Like, I hopefully that's a lesson I don't have to learn by making the mistake first. You know what I mean?

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 2 In general, having the space to say, okay, you know what? Like, it's going to be okay. Even if I end up overspending this month in the long run, it's going to be fine is really, it's really nice.

Speaker 10 And, Kevin, if you could leave your kids with one piece of advice or one value to keep in mind as they manage their finances going into adulthood, what would you want them to know?

Speaker 2 Think about the future. Your finances are going to change a lot over time, and you need to recognize when those changes are going to happen.
But at the same time, you need to have some fun.

Speaker 2 Go out on the weekend and have a new meal or something.

Speaker 8 Buy that helicopter.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 6 And the sports car.

Speaker 2 Perfect.

Speaker 10 Great. Well, Simon and Kevin, thank you so much for coming on Smart Money.

Speaker 2 Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having us.

Speaker 10 And that's all we have for this episode. Remember, listener, that we are here to answer your money questions.
So turn to the nerds and call or text us your questions at 901-730-6373.

Speaker 10 That's 901-730-NERD. You can also email us at podcast at nerdwallet.com.
Join us next time to hear whether RoboAdvisor accounts are safer or riskier than traditional investing accounts.

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Speaker 6 And here's our brief disclaimer. We are not your financial or investment advisors.

Speaker 6 This nerdy information is provided for general, educational, and entertainment purposes, purposes, and it might not apply to your specific circumstances.

Speaker 6 This episode is produced by Tess Figlin and Anaheel Hosky. Hilary Georgie helped with editing.
Nick Christemy mixed our audio.

Speaker 6 And we want to give a big, big thank you to Nerd Wallet's editors for all of their help.

Speaker 5 And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds.