We had savings galore but they wouldn't count it for a variety of reasons (withdrawn from biz account in last 90 days, biz account showed slight decrease because of covid), then calcs with old place and new together are hard.

Sometimes if you just leverage equity in old place you will be moving from + hard money + savings, you can do a cash offer, then sell off old place (we had a preemptive offer 4 days in well over asking - bay area).

Now you only have to be underwritten for one property (before selling old property they included both in calculations which made it hard). We got a 3% rate, then used that to settle up everything back to the way it was.

California also have firms like Reali (https://reali.com/how-to-guide-cash-offer/) that do a cash offer on new place, then you sell old place and buy from them.

This might be unique to the insanity of the CA market in last 2 years. I think it is cooling down thankfully?

It seems like home equity is actually a pretty safe and efficient form of cash flow. Even with a cheap mortgage, the payments I need to make each year are about 5% of the principal, which is of course more than the standard 3-4% safe withdrawal rate for investment. The mortgage interest deduction is relevant, but the mortgage is also the reason I would need to realize so much taxable income in the first place. There are no taxes on imputed rent or home equity. Living in a paid off home, you can appear to the income tax system and even some means-tested programs (those that consider income not wealth) as a pauper.

Because housing so dwarfs all other expenses, it is not clear to me why growing my principal at the expense of housing-sized cash flow would be a good tradeoff.