A high-net-worth investor asks whether to liquidate SGOV and cash or use a 4.3% margin loan to fund a $400-500k house down payment and renovations while keeping broad ETFs invested.
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Need some advice.
I need about 400-500k total to pay for a house down payment + renovations, rest of payment with standard physician mortgage. House is a slight fixer-upper with rare land/water features in HCOL area, expecting decent appreciation over time.
Total \~2.5M in IB account across mostly broad ETFs ( VTI, VXUS, etc). There is also $300k in SGOV from prior home sale, and $100k in cash.
HHI about 1.1m, contributions about $10-25k/month to IB after retirement accounts. Current NW about 3.5m, no other debt.
Option 1:
Liquidate SGOV + pull 100k cash + sell some assets to pay down payment + reno
Option 2:
Liquidate SGOV and use all of the 100k cash, and buy more broad ETFs. Bring cash balance to $0 in IB account. Then take the margin loan at 4.3%. Slowly pay down the margin loan balance + mortgage over time. Leave current holdings to DRIP and grow without further cash inflow until margin is gone. Mentally I feel by bringing the balance to $0 first, it lets me see exactly how much loan is left if that makes sense.
Thoughts on these strategies? I'm not interested in box spreads given the complexities and chance of screwing it up.