Background: I (28f in the U.S.) worked at a previous employer for 9 years and switched to working for an employer who has a retirement package including an optional 401k and an automatic pension plan (which is pretty sweet) and I am paying into the 401k option.
My 401k from my previous job currently has ~20k in it. It's just been sitting there because I don't know what to do with it in terms of rolling it over, leaving it, etc.
I don't have any credit card debt or student loan debt. My mortgage on my house has 18 years left (with tentative plans to pay it off before then by paying extra each month). I have 20k in a car loan but I'm paying an extra almost 30% on it every month, so it will be paid off early. Bank account has enough money to float us for a few months if my husband or I lost our job.
Question: Recently, a friend of a friend has said that they want to sell their 5 acre property near a beach. They originally bought it for 31k. Most of the property is on a wetland and there is NOTHING (no building, utilities, road, etc) on it. She ran in to problems because she built without a permit and got into trouble for building into the wetland. She had to pay considerable money to put it back to how it was and now wants to get rid of the damn thing. She said she would take 8k cash.
Preliminary research shows that the title is clean and there is 1/2 acre at the front of the property that is buildable. Long term goal had always been to retire on a vacation type property and my husband and I could save up money to, eventually, get permits and build on the land.
Is it a smart move to pull out my old 401k and buy this property? What kind of money would I pay in penalties and taxes (how much money would I actually receive)? It seems like a gamble but I do have my current job and guaranteed retirement to fall back on. Property taxes are only a few hundred a year since there isn't anything on the site, which we could afford.
Submitted April 25, 2019 at 08:22AM by k8td_ http://bit.ly/2L4GenZ
