Top products from r/DutchFIRE

Because /u/voerendaalse already did a great job answering stuff regarding our pension system I'm just going to answer the other questions for as far as possible.

 

> On the side: do you predict housing in Eindhoven to stabilize or lower price in the coming 5 years?

I've consulted my crystal ball but it didn't give a definitive answer, I'm sorry. In all seriousness though, buying a house ties you down to a specific place. Is that really in your best interest at this moment?

 

> Do I wait to start investing until I have enough cash to buy a house? ~150k. Or would you start investing already?

That depends on when / where you want to buy a permanent residence. If your plan is to retire in The Netherlands, and Eindhoven is your dream city where you want to live for the next 10-20 years, just buy it now and take a mortgage for the rest.

 

> It seems risky to have your housing money invested when there might be a market crash and then you lost half of it.

That's because it is. But you don't have to go all in... say you've got 30k in 'cash' (I.e. high yield savings account) and 200k invested. Say the market crashes and it ends up being 30k + 100k (absolute worst case imho... but let's roll with it). Now instead of buying a house with 230k, I'd personally just buy it with 30k + mortgage and sell the investments a few years later when the market recovers. If the market never recovers we'll probably have worse things to worry about.

 

> Currently, I save around 2,2k/month. I was planning to start investing 500e/month consistently.
> Rest of savings would go to house "down-payment" (until reaching 150k which I think will take me 4-5 years) and to my side-hustle.
> Given that, would you up those 500e/month to more? What are the risks?

It is extremely common here to buy a house without a sizable downpayment because mortgage tax deduction makes the net-interest rates very cheap. If you're in the 52% tax bracket a 10y mortgage would have an interest rate below 1%. Many on this sub would argue just taking a mortgage, keeping it as long as the interest rates are low, and just investing the money instead.

Now I understand the preference to be debt free, but I would personally not feel comfortable saving that amount of money on regular savings accounts in the current financial environment.

It's definitely personal preference, but I'd argue investing at least 50% of your savings with your savings rate.

 

> For those supposed 500e/month.. where do I put them?
> Mutal funds or ETFs? Do I diversify?
> I've read about DeGiro and Vanguard. Is there a crash course to dutch funds investment? Can you give a summary?

If you don't feel comfortable going the DIY-investment-portfolio route, I'd strongly recommend a low-fee investment company like Meesman. Many people on this sub use them, it's pretty much set-and-forget with automatic deposits and everything for incredibly low fees.

I'm a bit of a control freak so I prefer building my own portfolio of ETFs. This also helped me understand it better.

If you prefer that I'd recommend reading a book on investing / portfolio building. I like this book because it's what got me started. It's pretty short (~250 small pages) and has pretty much all the basics in there.

There's not much specifically Dutch about investing in ETFs.The only thing worth considering after the basics are if you prefer EUR as the base currency of your ETFs and if you want them euro-hedged. If you're going the ETF route you'll also want a broker that gives you a nice overview for reporting it on your tax form.

I'll end it with look at the top posts of all time (at least the first two) on this sub.

 

> I've read that the average tax on return for assets up to 75k is on average 2,87%. What's the expected return YoY before and after taxes of those funds in a "normal" situation?

'Expected' is tricky. My crystal ball is still broken. Historically speaking, on the long term, stocks provide more than 5% yearly in capital gains and dividends after inflation, but this varies per year and the stock market can be pretty volatile. Bonds provide lower gains but are also less volatile.

 

> What about P2P lending sites such as Twino.com? I played with 100EUR there for a year and got 11% return. What are the risks?

What about it?

The risks are pretty obvious, aren't they? The risk is that people don't actually finish paying back the loans. Anyway, I don't have experience with it and it's waaaaaay too volatile for my preferences so I'll refer you to MMM's Lending Club Experiment Page.

I'd personally only do this with 'play' money and not as part of my investment strategy.

 

> What about putting 10% in cryptocurrency? Not necessarily Bitcoin or ethereum but some other runner ups?

What about it?

Just like P2P lending I'd only do this with 'play money' (in fact, I actually own some cryptocurrencies with play money) and not do this with any significant part of my portfolio on the long run.

This is a completely unproven market, we have no idea with it will do in the next 10-20 years.

Can you make money betting on the right altcoin? Probably. Can you lose money doing the same thing? Most likely.

I get it, it's fun speculating. Because this stuff is so incredibly volatile I'm having fun playing around with it and trying not to lose my €1k play money by trying out different trading strategies with a self written trading bot... but that's just hobby stuff.

Since cryptocurrencies are all the hype at the moment I'll refer you to the Warren Buffet quote in my earlier post.

De intrinsieke waarde is imho lastig te bepalen en eerder een sentimentskwestie. Het verschil tussen bezettingen en schulden is niet zo moeilijk. Maar hoe ga je om met de goodwill? Wat is de kennis en kunde van het personeel? Welke 'nieuwe' producten liggen er op de plank en wat zijn de verwachte resultaten daar van....

leesvoer genoeg, maar afgaan op rekensommetjes als dcf, rentabiliteitswaarde enz. is maar een klein deel van het geheel.

​

lees dit eens; https://www.amazon.com/Value-Investing-Graham-Buffett-Finance/dp/0471463396/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&keywords=Value+Investing:+From+Graham+to+Buffett+and+Beyond+by+Bruce+Greenwald&qid=1341610267&s=books&sr=1-1