Net Worth - the dip

I just created our July 2011 Net Worth Report, and realized that I failed to post our June 2011 Net Worth Report.

You may noticed we were up to $418,000 in June, but dipped back down below $400,000 ($394,522) in July. This is due to two reasons, the primary being that I updated the value of both our properties. The previous values reflected the approximate tax-assessed value (current estimated fair-market values by the assessor are $210,600 for our house and $316,300 for the apartment - both of which I think are a little high, I posted in September 2009 about getting our house assessment lowered), but the values I use now are probably more realistic in the current market ($200,000 for our house and $300,000 for the apartment).

The real estate re-valuation accounted for a $19,000 decline, while the remainder was due to the stock market dip.

I also had a couple questions from commenters recently regarding how much money we are saving. Right now (and since January 2010), we are putting only the minimum in my 401(k) necessary to get the full company match. That is the extent of our saving, until we pay off our debt. This amounts to just 6% of my pre-tax income.

The second question was regarding where we got the money to purchase the apartment building. We purchased the building in January 2007 with just 10% down (our savings), and the remainder was mortgaged. At that time it was still possible (and common) to be able to get a 90/10/10 mortgage on an investment property. We have since paid off the second mortgage and refinanced the primary mortgage. We still have a fixed rate with a 30-year amortization and a balance of just over $200,000.