Dallas area pay rates?

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Hey there,I need a little bit of help here,ideas,suggestions,everything is welcome.

I'm an ICU RN with 3 years experience,looking to relocate to dallas.I want to get a job in CCL,GI Lab or PACU.I've got no clue what the hourly rates are so please help me out here.I was thinking Parkland,Baylor,presbyterian.

something else,i want to buy a house,how much taxes i would have to pay for lets say a 150k house?thanks a lot everybody!

Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
Sounds like perfectly good reasons to me. If it has worked before then of course you would do it again!
I know this is way off the subject of this thread (Dallas pay rates), but your idea of investment portfolios seems like something worth seriously looking into.
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Edited b/c I felt like I put too much info out there...

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Specializes in none yet, but I'm VERY excited!.
Out of curiousity - why would someone let 125k of their money sit tied up in a house (where they can't get to it quickly when they need it )that appreciates at a much lower rate than a solid investment portfolio, even with a reasonable mortgage interest? I'm just curious - I have never really understood the reasons for that and I'd be curious to hear them.

Administrators, please let me know gently if this post is too way off topic. I just think that this information may benefit a lot of nurses faced with the same decision. I'm still feeling my way through the etiquette.

I tried to do this analysis recently because I would love to own a house outright in case something terrible befell my family and we couldn't make the payments. It is actually very complicated. Here's a rundown of the thinking process. If you're interested in a more detailed numerical analysis, email me and we can discuss it. I'm not positive about it, so I like to bounce it off of people and let them try to find holes in it.

I think it rather depends on whether your tax-deferred investment vehicles are maxed out. Let's say you are making the maximum contribution to the Roth and the 401k/IRA. Okay, so you could borrow $125k (or whatever) and let's say you get it for 6%. Now that interest is a tax exemption and let's say it saves you 15% on that portion of your income. In effect, you are really only paying 5.1%. However, you get to invest all the money you borrowed and it might make 8% on average (the long-term performance of the S&P) over a long period of time. However, even though it is tax-deferred, it is not tax exempt, so the 8% you make is really 6.8%. Now the difference between the two (1.7%) seems pretty significant except that we haven't taken into account the fact that the house will appreciate. That eats up some or all of that difference. Ahh! But wait! Is it really only 6.8% that you're making in the market? After all, we haven't taken the magic of compounding into account (nor the likelyhood that tax rates will be a LOT higher for some of us when we retire). And you don't get the magic of compounding interest with house values. But hey! So what if the house is appreciating! So are all of the others! Will this be the retirement home or will we be moving? What have we gained here if we're staying. And what about the cost of the loan itself aside from the interest. Also, how much will we save by owning the house outright if there is some kind of disaster, permenant injury, or illness that prevents working (my aunt left nursing because she was diagnosed with Lupus). After all, pulling money from tax-deferred investments is expensive (there are provisions, but they're complicated).

There are a bunch of other considerations, but for some people it comes down to one thing -- peace of mind. I mean what are the odds that something would happen to bring us into foreclosure? Probably not great. However, the odds of me dying are pretty slim too and I still have term life insurance. Even if something did happen, we could probably scramble and save the house. Especially if we were invested elsewhere. However, that would cause a great deal of stress and it might be costly.

One idea is to buy a house you could live with and keep it as a rental so that it is generating revenue and tax relief. Then get a mortgage on the house you live in. Then if something happens, you move into the rental!

Hope this isn't to presumtuous or too detailed. I get this stuff from a great tax guy who has a weekly article in the Albuquerque Journal.

Regards,

Kenny B.

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Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.

But a natural disaster such as a tornado could wipe out that house you own and then you'd have to fight for years with an insurance co, probably resulting in havin to take them to court, thereby eating up whatever your reimbursement for the actual house would be....

All kinds of scenarios play into that. It's a lot like medicine - risk vs. benefit.

My husband is a mortgage loan officer - the wealthy folks he works with don't store a dime of their money in their homes, while the folks who are not so wealthy tend to want to hide their money in the mattress so to speak. I think that's pretty interesting.

Yeah - we've gotten off topic LOL

Personally I think the salaries here in this area compared to the cost of living are really great.

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Specializes in none yet, but I'm VERY excited!.
Texas has some sucky things about it.

But the Dallas area and north of it have had an explosion of golf courses. I love it.

I do a bit over 6 figures a year and have been doing so for over 10 yrs now.

But why are you looking at a 150k house. I assume your a lot younger than me.You should be looking for something more than that,

I'm somewhat young (35) and I got a less expensive house in order to free up disposable income for investment purposes and peace of mind. My understanding is that time in the market is the key to wealth in retirement and we can be happy in a less expensive house because it allows us extra money to go out and have a dandy time!

Now I have a question for you.

If this comes across as a rude question, please forgive me. I don't intend it that way. I just saw the post that a nurse with 3 years exp might make $25 per hour in Dallas and I was wondering how a person can get from that to six figures. According to my math 2000 hours would get you $100000 if you made $50 per hour on average.

Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Regards,

Kenny B.

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Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.

Shift difs, OT, Contract rates...

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
But a natural disaster such as a tornado could wipe out that house you own and then you'd have to fight for years with an insurance co, probably resulting in havin to take them to court, thereby eating up whatever your reimbursement for the actual house would be.....
My close friend, an LVN who relocated to DFW after losing her New Orleans home to Hurricane Katrina, swiftly received $190,000 from the homeowner's insurance policy after they paid off the $60,000 mortgage balance. She originally purchased the 1,000 square foot house an a lower socioecomonic class area for $80,000 five years ago. Some insurance companies beat around the bush while others pay expediently.

I'm an LVN and my income is limited. I found it difficult to cough up a $1100 house payment while living in California in addition to student loans and utilities. I only had a few hundred dollars left over at the end of the month. Now, since my only bills consist of utilities, I can invest my entire net pay into the 401(k), tax-deductible traditional IRAs, and Roth IRAs. My financial planner says I'll be a wealthy woman by retirement age.

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Hey guys,thanks a lot again!I haven't heard anything from the hospitals I applied at.icon9.gif.That's really discouraging,so i might not even move to Dallas after all.Never thought I'll have a problem finding a job in such a big city.Darn,maybe I'm too pickyicon12.gif

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I think it rather depends on whether your tax-deferred investment vehicles are maxed out. Let's say you are making the maximum contribution to the Roth and the 401k/IRA. Okay, so you could borrow $125k (or whatever) and let's say you get it for 6%. Now that interest is a tax exemption and let's say it saves you 15% on that portion of your income. In effect, you are really only paying 5.1%. However, you get to invest all the money you borrowed and it might make 8% on average (the long-term performance of the S&P) over a long period of time. However, even though it is tax-deferred, it is not tax exempt, so the 8% you make is really 6.8%. Now the difference between the two (1.7%) seems pretty significant except that we haven't taken into account the fact that the house will appreciate.

But here's the kicker, at least for me ... which isn't just the potential 1.7 percent difference between interest costs of the mortgage versus investment income you can make with the 401K, etc.

Let's say in you're in a high income tax bracket. That means you might have to pay something like 35 percent of your income to taxes before you can pay down that mortgage or spend the money on anything else, for that matter ...

In that case, it might make more sense to the put the money into the 401K because you can earn 8 percent on 35 percent your income that would otherwise go to taxes. That's 8 percent on a big chunk of your income over 20 years or so that would be lost if you paid down the mortgage instead.

Now, I live in California where we do have state income taxes so, obviously this scenario may not be quite the same for Texans but ... even if your tax bracket is 15-28 percent ... seems like it would be better to earn interest on that money with a 401K for the next 20 years than giving it away to the government.

Just some food for thought ....

:typing

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Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.

Yup - between the tax advantage of mortgage interest, and the fact that a good portfoloio can appreciate faster than (some) real estate, as well as spread your risk over more than one area (so all your eggs aren't in the smae basket) you can do VERY well for yourself.

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Yup - between the tax advantage of mortgage interest, and the fact that a good portfoloio can appreciate faster than (some) real estate, as well as spread your risk over more than one area (so all your eggs aren't in the smae basket) you can do VERY well for yourself.

Actually ... IMHO ... the tax advantages of mortgages aren't what they used to be. People think it's a big deduction but, in reality, it's not always.

Why? The standard deduction has gotten pretty high ... up to $10,000. That means you get an automatic deduction of $10K on your taxes whether you own a house or not.

So, unless your mortgage interest and real estate taxes far exceed $10K (which probably isn't typical in Texas where houses are more affordable) you're not getting much of a tax break with your house.

Your real house tax deduction is actually whatever you pay in interest and property taxes minus the 10K you would get with the standard deduction without owning a house.

So let's say you pay something like $12K in home interest and property taxes this year. Your real house deduction is actually only $2K, not $12K ... because you'd automatically get $10K in deductions whether you own a house or not.

And if you pay less than $10K in interest and property taxes, you're not getting a real tax break on your house at all because you actually save more taxes by taking the $10K standard deduction instead.

:typing

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