Should you’re excited about holding particular person municipal bonds as a secure and liquid supply of funds, assume twice. Proudly owning highly-rated municipal bonds is low danger. Nevertheless, promoting particular person municipal bonds may be extremely costly and cumbersome.

Not like shares, which now have $0 buying and selling charges and ample liquidity, municipal bonds have a a lot much less liquid market. In consequence, for those who ever wish to promote municipal bonds, you may need to promote them for manner under market worth.

The important thing takeaway from this put up is that for those who plan to put money into particular person municipal bonds for tax-efficient passive revenue, it is best to plan to carry them to maturity. Don’t rely on particular person municipal bonds as a simple supply of liquidity if an emergency comes up or if you wish to purchase a big ticket merchandise like a home.

Please observe I’m differentiating between proudly owning particular person municipal bonds and shares in a bond fund, which often has far more liquidity, however no maturity date.

Counting On Municipal Bond Proceeds For A Home Down Cost

The nearer you might be to purchasing a home, the higher the proportion of your down cost needs to be in money and low-risk investments comparable to Treasury payments. Once you discover the house you wish to purchase, you typically have to put down not less than 20% to be aggressive.

Given the excessive worth of properties lately, 20% down is often some huge cash. It could be unwise to gamble your down cost within the inventory market given its volatility. The extra it’s important to stretch to give you a suitable down cost, the extra conservative try to be along with your home down cost investments.

A few of you may need thought of investing in particular person municipal bonds as a substitute of money or Treasuries resulting from their tax benefit. You do not have to pay federal or state revenue tax in case you are shopping for municipal bonds issued by your state of residence. Subsequently, the upper your marginal tax price, the extra enticing the asset class.

Nevertheless, regardless of a possible larger internet yield, I would not park your down cost in particular person municipal bonds. You won’t be capable of promote them as a result of there might not be a marketplace for them. And for those who do promote them, you’ll seemingly must promote them at a steep low cost.

Bond Desk Sorted By Length

Earlier than I share with you my municipal bond-selling expertise, let me shortly share why somebody would possibly choose proudly owning munis as a substitute of Treasuries or different bonds. Check out this bond desk under.

You will get a two-year Treasury bond yielding 4.91% and a two-year Aaa-rated municipal bond yielding 3.98%. In case your marginal revenue tax price is 37%, the online yield in your Treasury bond is 3.09% because you pay federal revenue tax on bond revenue, however not state revenue tax.

Given 3.09% is decrease than 3.98%, an individual within the 37% marginal revenue tax bracket might choose to personal a two-year Aaa-rated municipal bond as a substitute. On this instance, the breakeven level is in case you are within the 19% marginal revenue tax bracket, which there’s at the moment no such factor.

The marginal revenue tax price jumps from 12% to 22%. Subsequently, anyone paying a 22% marginal revenue tax price or larger would profit extra from shopping for the municipal bond in the event that they maintain to maturity.

Holding particular person bonds to maturity protects you from principal loss in case rates of interest rise in the course of the holding interval.

Since early 2022, all sorts of bonds have gotten pummeled since inflation and rates of interest have surged larger. Subsequently, if it’s important to promote bonds now it’s not an optimum time.

First Unanticipated Downside Holding Municipal Bonds

After I submitted an supply with contingencies for a home, I assumed round $400,000 of the proceeds would come from municipal bonds I’ve held for over sux years. Though I’d take a loss on a lot of the bonds, I wanted some losses to offset some beneficial properties I’d have from promoting shares.

What I did not anticipate was not having the ability to promote about $200,000 out of the $300,000 municipal bonds I held at my Citibank brokerage account! My wealth supervisor tried for 2 weeks to promote a few my giant municipal bond holdings to no avail. There have been merely no bids, even at decrease and decrease costs.

Uh oh. How on earth was I going to give you the $200,000 shortfall on this account?

Purpose #1 for not relying on particular person municipal bonds for liquidity. You actually won’t be capable of promote them!

You probably have no different sources of funds to give you your home down cost, you would possibly fall out of contract. You would possibly even lose your earnest cash deposit for those who launch financing contingencies earlier than realizing you’ll be able to’t liquidate your municipal bonds. Beware.

Second Unanticipated Downside Holding Municipal Bonds

I then went to my Constancy brokerage account, the place I additionally held some municipal bonds. Anticipating I’d have a tough time promoting my municipal bonds right here as nicely, I gave the rep a name to see what he might do.

He walked me by means of the method of promoting a municipal bond, which required a number of steps. Step one was to click on the person bond holding, then click on the Promote button. Then I needed to scroll all the way down to get a Bid Request.

The Bid Request was not instantaneous. It takes the system about one hour to find out whether or not there’s demand for the variety of municipal bonds I wish to promote. I’d get notified both by textual content message, e-mail, or each.

This was inconvenient as a result of I so occurred to be on the seashore with my daughter. As well as, the Constancy cell app did not have the performance to promote municipal bonds. I needed to name Constancy again as soon as I received my bid request alert.

If I did not evaluate and settle for the bid requests inside ~5 minutes after they got here, they’d expire. I’d then must undergo all the course of once more. What a ache within the a$$!

Instance Of Muni Bond Bid Request Outcomes

Beneath is a snapshot of my Bid Requests, most of which expired as a result of I wasn’t paying speedy consideration an hour later.

Therefore, my second unanticipated shock from making an attempt to promote particular person municipal bonds was that after I discovered a brokerage that might promote them, the method was extraordinarily cumbersome. I needed to dedicate not less than an hour of my time to promote a municipal bond in comparison with promoting a inventory instantaneously by means of a cell app.

Purpose #2 for not relying on particular person municipal bonds for liquidity. The method isn’t instantaneous.

Closing Unanticipated Shock Of Promoting Municipal Bonds

I by no means deliberate to promote my municipal bond holdings earlier than maturity, not to mention in the course of the worst bond bear market in latest historical past. Nevertheless, when my dream home reappeared a 12 months later at a lower cost, I made a decision to go for it. The low cost I might get from the home would greater than cowl the loss from promoting the bonds.

After I lastly received to evaluate my bid requests, I used to be shocked by how a lot decrease the bid worth was in comparison with the market worth. We’re speaking a bid / ask unfold ranging between 1% – 4%, with the typical hovering round 2.85%.

In different phrases, if I wished to promote $10,000 value of municipal bonds, I needed to pay between $100 – $400 or settle for between $100 – $400 much less. At first, I held my nostril and bought some bonds as a result of I used to be initially so relieved to seek out out I might truly promote a few of my bonds by means of Constancy.

However then I took a step again and paused. Paying the upper finish of 1% – 4% to promote my municipal bonds felt like freeway theft! I’d relatively simply maintain them to maturity and discover different sources of capital that did not have such egregious promoting prices.

Beneath is an instance of a bid worth of $59.801 for a zero-coupon municipal bond at the moment buying and selling at $61.643. The distinction is $1.812 for an expansion/payment of two.94%. Not cheap!

Purpose #3 for not relying on particular person municipal bonds for liquidity. If it’s important to promote, you’ll have to promote at a steep low cost.

Some Brokerage Homes Are Higher Than Others

It seems that Citibank is not an ideal platform to promote municipal bonds. Not solely is its buying and selling platform expertise inferior to Constancy’s, it additionally by some means cannot faucet the identical pool of municipal bond liquidity Constancy can.

Given I could not promote $200,000 value of municipal bonds at Citibank, I noticed I might merely switch my Citibank portfolio over to Constancy. This course of would take about 7-10 days complete. I’ve executed it earlier than.

Given I’ve a lengthy escrow interval with contingencies, ready 7-10 days to port my Citibank portfolio over wasn’t an enormous deal. However for those who want the liquidity sooner, then this resolution will not work. As a result of after you promote a municipal bond, you will not get the proceeds for 2 days (T+2). Therefore, plan forward.

On reflection, I am grateful I could not promote $200,000 value of municipal bonds at Citibank. Promoting them would have price me $2,000 – $8,000.

I additionally do not plan to promote $200,000 value of municipal bonds in my Constancy portfolio both as a result of charges. The truth is, I wish to construct a bigger bond portfolio to lock in larger rates of interest for extra passive revenue.

Discovering New Capital To Make Up For The Shortfall

How will I give you the capital shortfall if I do not promote my municipal bonds?

One thought is to ask for a bridge mortgage paying a 5.5% rate of interest to the Financial institution of Mother & Dad. However I am uncomfortable asking for more cash as a result of I am speculated to be serving to them, not borrowing from them.

One other supply of funds might come from my rollover IRA. Supposedly, I can use funds from my IRA as long as I return the funds inside 60 days. That is known as the 60-day rollover rule from the IRS web site. Fortunately, my rollover IRA has sufficient funds to cowl all the shortfall. The issue with this resolution is paying again the cash inside 60 days.

One other supply of funds is to get a job or do some consulting work. I will couple this work with reducing our bills. However these actions will not even make up for 10% of the cash that is wanted since I solely have a month left. However I ought to strive anyway.

The ultimate supply of funds is to ask my spouse to faucet into her taxable retirement portfolio. We purchase every little thing collectively. However we additionally earmark sure funds particularly for retirement to remain disciplined. In any other case, we is perhaps tempted to spend an excessive amount of cash on too many luxuries we do not want. Comparable to this nicer home!

We do not plan to use for a mortgage. The excessive rates of interest, time it takes, and price to use isn’t value it. I’m comfortable turning humorous cash shares into an house after the rebound.

Do not Depend On Your Municipal Bonds To Pay For A Home

In conclusion, do not consider municipal bonds as a liquid various to money. It’s not resulting from its excessive promoting charges and issue of promoting. The longer the period of the municipal bond, the extra worth it can lose if rates of interest go up.

Therefore, if you wish to park your home down cost in bonds, purchase 3-month or 6-month Treasury payments. Should you do, the impression of upper charges, in the event that they occur throughout your holding interval, will probably be negligible. Additional, the Treasury bond market is very liquid, in contrast to the municipal bond market.

After I used to work in finance, bond merchants have been a few of the wealthiest staff at my agency. Now I’ve a transparent understanding why. The mounted revenue bid-ask spreads are so giant, bond merchants are capable of make a killing if they will efficiently meet market calls for.

Should you plan to put money into particular person municipal bonds, maintain them to maturity. Provided that rates of interest plummet and the worth of your bonds skyrocket, do you have to contemplate promoting them beforehand.

Reader Questions and Suggestions

Have you ever ever needed to promote a person bond resulting from liquidity wants? In that case, why? If you’re an skilled bond investor, what are another issues we needs to be privy to when shopping for and promoting bonds, not simply municipal bonds? Anyone shopping for bonds now to benefit from excessive rates of interest?

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