Test Driving Real Estate Options

The Challenge

Ted has accumulated a fair amount of wealth as an engineer at Tesla for the past nine years. He was considering buying his first home and was struggling with the decision of where to buy, with near term and long term goals in mind. A colleague in the Cupertino office of Intero asked us to meet with Ted and see if we could help.

The Goal

It is important for Ted to keep his daughter in the Cupertino school system. Ted was considering whether to buy a $1.2 million dollar home in Cupertino or purchase his forever home in the woods of Los Gatos while continuing to rent in Cupertino so his daughter could remain in the school system.

The Solution

What started as a transactional conversation evolved quickly. It was evident that this and every financial decision that Ted would make is fundamentally about how to best take care of his eleven-year-old daughter. With that, we were able to have a more comprehensive conversation about estate planning, annual tax planning, comprehensive financial planning, and about real estate through this very different lens. We modeled several scenarios that allowed Ted to test-drive his options with visibility into how each would affect his financial future. Through the financial planning process, we were able to show Ted that not only was either option he had been considering viable but that he could also explore higher-priced homes in Cupertino, about which he might be more excited.