Anthony is in Kansas City. Hi, Anthony. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. How you doing? Great. How can I help? Um, I have about a half million dollars in my checking account, and I have had it in there for a couple of years. I'm trying to figure out exactly what to do with it. My plan was to use it for real estate, but the real estate market's got me a little spooked right now. We live in a college or close to a college town, and uh, the market there, they've built so many brand new complexes in the last 10 years, and nobody's going to college. Okay, I'm with you. Exactly. The enrollment rates are going down. Um, you know, so I'm a little bit leery of that. So, what town are you in? I'm Manhattan, Kansas. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yep, you're far enough away from Kansas City that you're probably not investing in Kansas City, right? Correct. Okay, Anthony, how old are you? I'm 45. Okay, you've done a great job.

yeah, you have. Are you planning to stay in Manhattan? That depends. Um, don't necessarily need to. I have a hobby farm. I'm an electrical contractor by trade, but my real estate holdings. I have a couple rental properties too, but I have about a million and a half in real estate. That's all paid for. Um, about a hundred thousand in cash, 500,000 of my checking [Music], about 400,000 in other assets like track loaders and tractors. And you're a stud. Well done. So proud of you. It's got to feel great, man. I mean, you really did it. And I'm assuming you did all this starting from nothing, correct? I had nothing, inherited nothing. Way to go. Well, here's what I would do if I woke up in your shoes and I find myself in similar situations from time to time. I'm between real estate deals and I need access to the cash when I get ready to do the next real estate deal. That's where I find myself. It's where

you find yourself because you're not going to drop that half million into Manhattan. You've made that decision. I'm not going to recommend. If you listen to me for more than 20 minutes, you know this to be a long-distance landlord. And so what I'm going to end up doing is just parking this probably in like an S&P 500, you know, a no-load fund. There's no commissions and just ride the market with it a little bit while I'm waiting to decide what I'm going to do. And one of two things will happen. One of three things will happen. You decide to stay in Manhattan and the market gets soft as you predict, so you will not pull that money out and buy in Manhattan. So you're probably going to turn and invest it in some other vehicle for probably some mutual funds or something. Number two thing that could happen is you move and you're living in whatever Kansas City and you've got a great market to invest in. Then you pull the money out.

and you invest it then uh what was the third thing that could happen. The third thing could happen would be manhattan bounce back uh the college market firms back up and you feel good about investing in manhattan again. Pull the money out of the s p and invest so you're parking it until something else moves another variable moves in this situation but checking account's not okay. Yeah and I realize that it's been but you know how it is time kind of flies when you're having fun. Well and I'm sure your bank is reaching out blowing up your phone with all their ideas and thoughts are real helpful right now and anthony mr drysdale's on paul mr drysdale's on the line. There's a fourth option you may begin to look at something that gets to be on sale where you've got someone that has to sell or is looking to sell and now you've put yourself in a situation to start to have some conversations about potentially buying. Yeah that that could happen as the market healed.

right in Manhattan. That's right. That somebody couldn't quite survive the turn, and it's making an upward turn, and you're comfortable with it. That could result in a really good purpose, great deal. Yeah, that's a very, very good point. Dr. John Dolone is, you know, one of his three 32 degrees. He's got more degrees than a thermometer in higher ed, and he's talked about with you and I and a bunch of us behind the scenes, and even some of what on the air, that to the extent that because of the student loan debacle and because COVID sent everybody home, and they realized these colleges are trying to charge us just as much sitting at home. I'm not getting like the college experience. I don't see any ivy on the walls here right at my house. So, to those two things hitting together are accelerating the demand for college degrees, on-campus living, college degrees. They're accelerating that demand, dropping, right? It's been dropping. We saw the student

loan. The COVID thing has pushed it over the edge, and so we are seeing some things like he's describing a college town like Manhattan, which is what Kansas State, right? Yep, it's Kansas State. And um, so uh, you know, we're seeing so many smaller towns where the economy is driven by college students. That's right. It's affecting their economies. It really is. There's a lot of those around America.

I have $500,000 in My Account, What Should I Do With It?

I have $500,000 in My Account, What Should I Do With It?