Here's Our Ultimate List of the 100 Side Hustles That Are Trending in 2020
You’ve set your financial goals high for 2020! Making money and saving money are both at the top of your list of New Year’s resolutions. And to make your vision a reality, you’re ready to hustle—or side hustle, you should say—since one of the fastest ways to make more money is by starting an income-building side hustle that you manage in addition to your regular work routine.
So whether you want to learn easy ways to make money online or are looking for the best side hustle ideas for 2020 that’ll help you earn extra cash quickly, these 100 side hustle ideas for 2020 will help you find the best part-job times that fit your already-busy schedule and skill set—and help you can a whole lot of moolah in the process!
1. Teach English online. Sites like VIPKID and Qkids are popular options.
2. Sell items on Etsy. Make handmade goods that you can sell on Etsy, like knit hats or custom embroidered handkerchiefs, for some extra cash.
3. Write an e-book. Write a self-published e-book to sell on Amazon.
4. Sell online workshops. If you’re an expert in your field or have some other valuable life lessons to teach others, turn your expertise into a side hustle and sell online courses or workshops online.
Related: Excuse Us While We Download These 25 Side Hustle Apps—and Start Seeing the Cash Flow In
5. Rent out your parking space. “Did you know that you can make money by renting out your car parking space?” posts @biglifeplan. “Yep! People pay money each month to use your car parking space. Another perk of the sharing economy. If you have a car parking space you’re not using, try websites such as Daft or ParkPNP to make passive income each month for very little effort.”
6. Rent out a spare room. Whether you list your space on Airbnb or simply consider getting a roommate to sign a year-long lease that’ll off-set your mortgage, becoming a landlord is one of the most lucrative side hustle ideas out there.
7. Refurbish and re-sell used furniture. Buy cool pieces at a thrift store and make them look better than ever with a coat of paint or some new drawer pulls. You can even get gently used pieces off the side of the road for a lower start-up cost.
8. Teach music lessons. If you know how to play the piano or strum a guitar, get involved with a local music group or connect with other band parents at school so you can start hawking your services as a music tutor.
9. Become a virtual assistant. With the workforce becoming increasingly more remote, lots of big companies and high-up executives are hiring virtual assistants to outsource administrative responsibilities to. If you have the right skills, this type of part-time side hustle could be an easy way to make more money in 2020.
10. Assemble IKEA and Amazon furniture. Some people hate putting this stuff together so much that they’ll pay you to do it!
Related: Looking To Start A Side Hustle In 2020? Here’s Your Reading List
11. Sell handmade items at local art shows. While some art shows require you to pay a fee for booth space, you can also look for free venues where you can sell handmade goods and pieces of art.
12. Monetize your Instagram account. Creating engaging content and using strategic hashtags can help you build a booming following on social media. Once you have upwards of 10k followers, you can start making money by monetizing posts and taking on advertisers.
13. Be a tour guide. If you live in a touristy destination, you can start a local tour guide company as your new side hustle.
14. Become an Uber or Lyft driver. You can make upwards of $100,000 a year doing this side hustle in a big city, like New York City.
15. Mow lawns. Just print out fliers and drop them off in people’s mailboxes and you’re on your way to building a lawn mowing business as your side hustle.
16. Babysit. List your services on a site like Care.com or simply start spreading the word amongst your friends. With rates around $10-15 in most areas, you can start earning cash quickly.
17. Start an alterations business. If you have great sewing skills, you can start an alternations side hustle from your own home simply using word of mouth recommendations.
18. Become a party planner. Start a small business planning corporate parties, family gatherings and the like to put your love of entertaining to work for you.
19. Create worksheets or templates. Whether it’s a geometry study guide or a financial planning worksheet, you can charge a small fee per download.
20. Do makeup for special events. Make extra money by doing people’s makeup before prom, weddings and other special festivities.
21. Go freelance. Whatever job you do now, try doing a few extra hours of it in a freelance capacity each week for some extra income.
22. Write and edit resumes. If you’re in HR or a hiring manager in yousr day job, your resume writing and editing advice is something people will pay for! Post fliers around the local college’s campus to recruit new business.
23. Sell digital designs. For a low-maintenance side hustle idea, create digital designs—like holiday card templates, printable art or resume designs—to sell online at sites like Etsy.
24. Start consulting. No matter what field you’re in, there’s a part of your skill set that is totally “sell-able”—it’s just up to you to make the most of it.
25. Teach yoga. Once you’re a certified yoga teacher, you can make extra money by working as a part-time teacher at a local gym or yoga studio.
26. Become a handyman-for-hire. If you’re especially handy, you can sell your time and expertise by being a house-call handyman who can help out with random jobs around the house, like patching dry wall or unclogging a drain.
27. Rent out storage space. Have a lot of under-utilized storage space available–whether it’s a shed in your backyard or a bonus room in your home? Make money off of it by renting it out for a small monthly fee.
28. Be a DJ. With a laptop and a few good speakers, anyone can start a DJ side hustle business.
29. Sell handmade soaps. Buy a soap making kit at your local craft store and create sweet-scented bars of soap to sell for profit.
30. Host Tupperware parties. Or Mary Kay parties or any of the like. Most companies will pay you a commission for each sale you receive.
31. Become a travel agent. If finding travel deals and knowing the best spots or attractions to visit in any city is your jam, why not make booking vacations for others your side hustle idea in 2020.
32. Buy and sell domain names. You can buy up domain names rather cheaply, build them up a bit and then sell them for profit as a fully-remote side hustle.
33. Edit videos. If you’re a whiz with digital editing software, you can start a video editing side hustle and sell your services to local businesses.
34. Work for Amazon Flex. You can sign up to deliver packages with Amazon Flex and make upwards of $18 an hour.
35. Sell unwanted products on Facebook Marketplace. “If you have unwanted products or clothing around the house take a picture, decide on a price, list your items, share your items with friends and earn money. I recently sold 3 things in one week and made $85,” says Kumiko Love, Founder of The Budget Mom.
36. Donate plasma. If you meet their medical criteria, many clinics will pay you for donating your plasma—which you can do about twice a week. While it’s one of the weirder side hustle ideas on this list, it’s a unique way to earn some consistent cash.
37. Start a cleaning business. Charge an hourly or project-based rate for cleaning people’s homes. The best part about this side hustle idea is that it doesn’t cost much to get it up and running, and you can keep scaling it month after month!
38. Rent out your specialty gear. Whether you have a heavy-duty pressure washer or a set of skis and poles, you can list your gear for rent to make some extra cash on the side.
39. Become a wedding planner. If you have the right skills and contacts, starting a wedding planning side hustle can be a lucrative business idea for 2020.
40. Sell used goods on eBay. Rather than donating or tossing old items, like that outdated light fixture you replaced in the dining room, try selling them on eBay first. You never know who might be in the market for a vintage find!
41. Design and sell t-shirts. Create cool t-shirt designs for your local sports team or high school and get them screen printed in bulk to sell around town.
42. Become a referee. Local parks and recreation centers hire refs to make calls during little league games and the like.
43. Get paid to take online surveys. Believe it or not, but you can make an extra hundred or so dollars a month simply by taking surveys or watching videos online.
44. Build a subscription box business. Whether you love picking the perfect beauty products or have a knack for putting together the best snack boxes, you can create and sell your own custom subscription boxes online using a site like CrateJoy for some extra income.
45. Drive for Uber Eats. Delivering food via a service like Uber Eats is an easy side hustle idea for those craving a flexible schedule.
46. Sell customized products you can DIY using a Cricut. You can customize just about anything easily with the help of the Cricut smart cutting machine, from candles, centerpieces, party invitations, totes, wall art, and so much more, which could blossom into a booming side hustle idea in no time.
47. Start a moving company. With the help of a truck and a few strong friends, you can start booking moving jobs. Within a few months, you can build up a good reputation locally and create a profitable side hustle.
48. Sell photos. Whether you take portrait-style pics for your friends at church or license them through a photo-sharing website, you can use your photography skills and nice camera to earn a little extra dough.
49. Shovel snow. If you live in an especially snowy areas, starting a snow shoveling service in your neighborhood could get you business—and extra cash—fast!
50. Get a real estate license. “Due to the many moving parts, players, money and legalities involved in buying and selling homes, competitive real estate agents most often are in it full-time,” explain Jen and Josh Horner, Realtors at RE/MAX Utah. “But, if you decide to secure your real estate license and devote your time to making real estate strictly a side hustle, it can be a one that can produce a nice stream of income on the side.” Just make sure you evaluate startup costs and the number of transactions you would have to close to not just break even, but to actually profit, they caution. “Do the numbers work? Do you have the patience, dedication and a strong network to tap? If so, then real estate just might be a serious side hustle for you to entertain,” they say.
Related: How One Couple Said Goodbye to $78,000 of Debt + Other Side Hustle Success Stories
51. Transcribe interviews. Sites like Transcribe Anywhere will pay you to transcribe audio recordings. Set your own schedule, so you can work as much or as little as you like!
52. Stage houses. Have an eye for interior design? Staging homes for a small fee could be an enjoyable side hustle idea for you! Get started by networking with realtors and listing agents in your area.
53. Sell advertising space on your vehicle. You can make money by selling ad space on your car—how cool is that?! If you live in a highly populated area and spend a decent amount of time driving, selling advertising space on your vehicle, using a site like Wrapify, could make a great side hustle for 2020.
54. Become a wedding officiant for hire. You can get ordained online and earn a few hundred dollars for each wedding you officiate!
55. Work as a personal trainer. Charge your friends $10 a workout to put some extra dough in your wallet.
56. Try peer-to-peer lending. Peer-to-peer money lending websites, like Lending Club, help you make money off of your savings. You can invest funds for others to borrow and they pay the interest directly to you.
57. Join Kango. Kango is a ride-sharing and childcare app where you can create your own flexible side hustle schedule. Plus, you get to work with kids!
58. Start a part-time pet-sitting business. When it comes to picking the best side hustle idea, “I’d start with things that feel natural or pique your interest,” suggests Ashley Feinstein Gerstly, founder of The Fiscal Femme, “because this will be something you’re doing in addition to your current workload. For example, if you love animals, you might enjoy pet sitting while people are away traveling,” she suggests.
59. Sell your graphic design skills online. “If you love design, you might help people with graphic design,” suggests Ashley Feinstein Gerstly, founder of The Fiscal Femme, by starting a graphic design side hustle. Build a personal website to show off your skills to potential clients, or simply list your services on a site like Fiverr.
60. Host a weekly car wash. In warmer months, set up shop every Saturday at a busy grocery store so folks know where to find you. Promise to have their car washed and ready by the time they leave the store to build repeat business.
61. Sell baked goods. Set up a booth at your local farmer’s market and sell freshly baked goods as a fun side hustle idea.
62. Clean windows. This is one of those dirty jobs that is relatively easy to do—as long as you have a big enough ladder—but that most people would rather hire someone to do for them, making it a good side hustle option.
63. Become a mystery shopper. Signing up to become a mystery shopper on sites like Bestmark is one of the most fun side hustle ideas out there. Not only can you make a bit of extra cash on the side, it come with a lot of cool perks—like free dinners or entertainment.
64. Prepare people’s tax returns. During the tax filing season, companies will hire extra tax prep help to keep up with demand.
65. Become a sign spinner. Many businesses still hire people to hold signs at busy intersections for an hourly rate.
66. Start a house painting company. Assemble a team of experienced painters who can help you knock out any painting jobs you book.
67. Edit college admission essays. Get paid to proofread and edit college entrance essays for graduating high school seniors.
68. Become a personal shopper. If you’ve got great fashion sense, there’s a good chance someone you know would hire you for a bit of helpful shopping advice.
69. Fund your invention on Kickstarter. Start a Kickstarter page and your cool side hustle idea could start making you money in no time!
70. Join Rent-a-Friend. Yes, you read that right. Rent-a-Friend let’s you set your rate as a “rentable friend” (nothing dirty, we promise!) to join as your plus one to a social event or even just to show you around town.
71. Start a blog. While this won’t start making you money instantly, with time, good SEO practices and a dedicated following, you can turn a blog into a profitable side hustle in 2020.
72. Manage a company’s social media pages. If you have any experience planning Instagram content or running a Facebook page, selling your social media management skills could be a good way to earn some extra income.
73. Get a part-time delivery job. Companies like FedEx and UPS hire seasonal help, which can be a great temporary side hustle.
74. Sell snacks to coworkers. Keep a fully stocked snack bin in the company’s kitchenette and uses the honor system to charge $1 per package. You’ll earn extra income and bonus points from your coworkers at the same time!
75. Become a house sitter. Not only is house sitting a fun and relaxing way to make money, if you’re able to do it often enough, you could save yourself some money on rent, too.
76. Tutor students. Whether you’re a pro at math or got a great score on your LSATs, you can make a pretty penny when you start tutoring as your side hustle.
77. Join a clinical trial. Some medical centers will pay you to participate in clinical studies should you meet the specific qualifications of their current trial.
78. Pick up people’s trash. Some companies will hire you to keep their parking lots clean and free of trash.
79. Start a laundry service. If you’re living in an area where in-home washer and dryers are rare, you can make a killing by starting a wash-n-fold laundry delivery service side hustle.
80. Work with seniors. Get hired as extra help for the elderly. If you have a nursing degree, you can earn a lot! And even if you don’t, you can provide useful services like assistance grocery shopping or cleaning the house.
81. Sell goods on Amazon Handmade. Similar to Etsy, but with Amazon’s signature accessibility, you can become a seller on Amazon Handmade and sell your hand-crafted items for cash.
82. Become a virtual bookkeeper. Different than a personal assistant—and no accounting degree required—you can keep track of expenses for small businesses as a side hustle idea.
83. Teach a cooking class. If you’ve got great kitchen skills, try hosting a class in your home and charging $10-$15 a person to cover supplies and your time.
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84. Transcribe YouTube videos. Creators of YouTube and other video content will hire you to transcribe the audio, so it can be uploaded along with their visuals. Depending on how fast of a typer you are, you can make a lot of money with this side hustle idea.
85. Become a celebrity impersonator. If you have a costume that’ll let you dress up like someone famous—say Elvis, Obama or one of the Disney princesses, for example—you can sell your services on sites like Fiverr for some extra income.
86. Become a life coach. One of the easiest ways to start your own side hustle in 2020 is to sell your time and expertise. As a life coach, you can do just that by using your real-life experiences to help coach clients in need of guidance and support.
87. Start a house call grooming service. With a few supplies and a can-do attitude, you can start a pet grooming service that makes house calls as your side hustle.
88. Cook or do meal prep. There are so many ways to turn a cooking or baking hobby into a side hustle. For example, “If you love to cook, start working as a private chef or offering to meal prep for people,” says Ashley Feinstein Gerstly, founder of The Fiscal Femme.
89. Help people shop on Curated. Curated makes it possible for avid sports and outdoor hobbyists to make extra money by helping shoppers with customized gear and product recommendations—from cycling to boating to golfing and more.
90. Sell used clothes online. Sites like thredUP and Poshmark make selling your used clothes online an easy—and profitable—side hustle to start in 2020.
Related: How a Side Hustle Can Add Passion—and a Big Payoff—to Your Career
91. Join InstaCart. Make money on InstaCart by signing up to do other people’s grocery shopping for them.
92. Become a notary. State notary licenses typically cost about $100, and you can quickly start earning money by selling your notary services.
93. Host garage sales for friends and family. Start by selling your own stuff. Then, to turn it into a true side hustle, offer to manage yard sales for your friends and family for a portion of the proceeds.
94. Test websites for cash. Websites like User Testing let you earn up to $60 a test for looking over websites and giving your feedback.
95. Open a food stand. Set up a table or booth at the park and sell your homemade meals for cash.
96. Start a calligraphy business. With a bit of practice, you can earn around $5 an envelope!
97. Create a podcast. You can charge a small fee for downloads!
98. Become a brand ambassador. The perfect side hustle idea for people living on or near a college campus! Beer brands and the like will hire you to help spread awareness about the product—and to hand out free samples!
99. Get paid to download apps. Sites like Feature Points allow you to make money downloading and using apps in your spare time!
100. Do data entry. Many offices, such as doctor’s offices, will pay talented typists to accurately digitize hand-written information by adding it to digital databases.
Want to make money without leaving your couch? These 50 ways to make money online could be just what you’re looking for!
Sterling Bancorp (STL) Q4 2019 Earnings Call Transcript
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Sterling Bancorp (NYSE:STL)Q4 2019 Earnings CallJan 23, 2020, 10:30 a.m. ET
Contents:
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the Sterling Bancorp Q4 2019 Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Jack Kopnisky. Please go ahead.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, everyone. And thanks for joining us to present our -- present and discuss our results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2019. Joining me on the call is Luis Massiani, our Chief Financial Officer; and Emlen Harmon, our newly appointed Director of Investor Relations.
We have a presentation on our website, which along with our press release provides detailed information on our quarterly and year-end results. During the call, we will highlight our strong quarterly and year-end financial metrics resulting from strong targeted commercial loan growth, diversified deposit growth, solid fee income, continued strong credit quality, superior levels of capital and significant cost controls.
In the fourth quarter, we were able to execute several strategic actions that will continue to remix the balance sheet to enable the company to produce increased earnings and positive operating leverage in 2020 and beyond. During the quarter, we acquired a targeted $839 million equipment finance portfolio, issued $275 million of sub-debt at favorable rates, continued to reposition our balance sheet and earning asset mix and repurchased 4 million shares of stock.
On an operating basis, our fourth quarter results were strong. Adjusted net income available to common shareholders for this quarter was $109 million, a 3% increase over the linked quarter. Adjusted earnings per share of $0.54 was $0.02 or 4% higher than the linked quarter and the fourth quarter of 2018.
Adjusted return on average tangible assets was 151 basis points and adjusted return on average tangible common equity was 16.6%. Our efficiency ratio continues to be among the industry leaders at 40%. Our tangible book value per share of $13.09 increased 1.5% over the linked quarter, and 11.1% over December 2018. The EPS of $0.54 and tangible book value of $13.09 were record levels for our company.
During the quarter, we continue to remix the loan and securities portfolios to achieve higher risk-adjusted returns. Total assets increased by $500 million during the quarter as we are now in a position to grow the overall balance sheet given that most of the balance sheet repositioning is behind us. We continue to produce strong loan growth. For the quarter, inclusive of the equipment finance portfolio acquisition, commercial loans grew $791 million or 4.4% over the linked quarter. On an annual basis, targeted commercial loans grew $2.8 billion or 17.2%.
During 2019, we reduced low yielding residential and consumer loans by $566 million, resulting in total growth in portfolio loans of $2.2 billion or 11.6%. Commercial real estate, public finance, mortgage warehouse, and lender finance portfolios have all grown organically by more than 10% year-over-year.
We had a strong quarter for deposit growth. Total deposits increased by $839 million on a spot basis at year-end. Average deposit balances increased by $1.5 billion over the linked quarter. As the seasonal municipal balances declined in the quarter, we were able to replace and grow core commercial and consumer balances, direct bank and broker deposits at more favorable rates. Deposit costs declined by 3 basis points from September 30, 2019, and overall weighted average funding cost declined by 10 basis points.
We are focusing on reducing deposit costs in the targeted high-cost municipal relationships and a $1.2 billion consumer CD portfolio that will reprice by March 31, 2019. We expect to lower deposit costs by 5 basis points to 10 basis points in the first quarter of 2020. Our mix of products, channels and funding sources provide flexibility to grow balances, while we lower funding costs.
Our core net interest margin, excluding accretion income on acquired loans was 313 basis points for the quarter. The declining interest rate environment has resulted in lower asset yields on our floating-rate loans and securities that comprise approximately one-third of our assets. Coupled with competition for deposits, our net interest margin has been pressured, but we have been able to maintain a stable core net interest margin over the past 18 months as a result of our remixing our earning assets and our focus on controlling deposit costs. Assuming no changes in the rate outlook, we anticipate that our core net interest margin will remain in a 315 basis point to 325 basis point range into 2020.
Just a note on the core interest margin, we held significant cash balances in the quarter to purchase the equipment finance portfolio. If these cash balances would have been invested, the margin would have been approximately 317 basis points. Core fee income growth continued to be solid as a result of commercial loan fee income, swap fees, treasury management fees, and portfolio fee improvements. Adjusted fee income was a $117 million and grew by $15 million or 15% over the full year 2018.
Core expenses exclusive of amortization of intangibles increased modestly from the year-ago quarter to a $105.5 million or up 1%. We continue to aggressively reduce our financial center network and staffing and have reallocated a portion of the reductions to support growth in the commercial teams, technology and enterprise risk management.
In 2019, we consolidated 24 financial centers resulting in any two financial centers at year-end. We expect to be under 80 financial centers in 2020. Overall, our expense run rate for the quarter equates to an annualized operating expense level of $419 million. As we indicated in our earnings presentation, we expect operating expenses will be in the $420 million to $430 million range for 2020.
Credit quality and capital levels remained strong. Charge-offs decreased by $5 million over the linked quarter as we disposition previously identified equipment loans on an annualized basis. The $9.1 million of charge-offs represent 17 basis points of loans. The levels of non-performing loans and delinquency levels improved this quarter. Substandard loan categories increased but these increases represent secured performing and appropriately marked loans. Given a stable economy, the low rate environment, regulatory oversight and the mix of our portfolio, we expect to continue to see strong credit quality in 2020.
Total tangible common equity to tangible assets was strong at 9%, and total risk-based capital at the bank was 13.6%. During the quarter, we repurchased 4 million shares and have 1.6 million shares remaining in our repurchase authorization. We continue to evaluate the use of excess capital for investment into our core business, share repurchases and dividend payouts. We were able to execute a favorable $275 million debt issuance in the quarter that will refinance existing debt due in mid-2020 from the Astoria transaction and provide growth capital for our company.
One of the core fundamental elements of our culture is our focus on constantly reinventing our company. We believe that great companies constantly change, adjust and improve to meet the demands of our shareholders, clients, and colleagues. Our objective has always been to position the company to be a high-performance organization, regardless of changes in the economy, rates or the competition.
The majority of questions we receive from investors relate to the dynamics of growth in later cycle lower rate environments. I would like to highlight that some of the steps we have taken across a number of areas to position us for continued steady growth. While producing record tangible book value and EPS over the past year, we have also successfully remixed the asset side of the balance sheet by exiting non-relationship, low yielding residential and multi-family asset classes, and replacing them with targeted relationship-oriented higher-yielding CRE and C&I loans.
We have made this transition by organic originations through our 35 commercial relationship teams and by acquiring targeted high-quality loan portfolios. We originated a record $1.6 billion in commercial loans organically this year and acquired two portfolios totaling $1.2 billion for total commercial loan growth of $2.8 billion in 2019. We have the ability to continue to grow the commercial side of the company and related revenues now that the majority of this transition is complete.
The combination of these efforts and steps we have taken to manage our liabilities have successfully repositioned our balance sheet to maintain a steady year-over-year core net interest margin, despite 75 basis points of Fed funds reductions, a flatter yield curve and a competitive environment for deposits. We have developed multiple funding sources that have distinct volume, cost, rate and term attributes. The financial centers, commercial teams, digital and wholesale channels enable us to have options in how we fund growth.
The fourth quarter provided a good illustration of this capability as we grew our overall deposits by $839 million despite nearly $250 million in seasonal municipal runoff, while also lowering our cost of deposits by 3 basis points. We will continue to refine existing channels and seek new funding channels. Our credit quality has remained exceptionally strong. For the past eight years, we have focused significant resources on creating a best-in-class risk management program. Over the past year, we have enhanced our credit group by acquiring significant talent and technology to support growth and deal with future credit cycles.
Overall, our CRE portfolio has a loan-to-value of less than 48% and a debt service coverage of 1.68 times. Our C&I portfolio is 97% secured within margin by accounts receivable, inventory or equipment. We believe credit quality will be strong for the near future, given a stable economy, low rate environment and tightened regulatory standards across the industry.
We are confident in our model and our ability to meet and exceed our growth and return targets in the future, even in a lower rate environment. The past year was challenging due to the rate changes and the flatness of the yield curve. We successfully repositioned the company to deliver in 2020 and beyond positive operating leverage and strong earnings-per-share growth, return on average tangible assets of 150 basis points or greater, return on average tangible common equity of 16% or greater, efficiency ratios of less than 40% and growth in tangible book value of greater than 10%.
We continue to point to the information on page 4 of the presentation that reflects the overall results of our actions over the past several years. Over the past five year period ended -- ending December 31, 2019, our adjusted earnings-per-share growth compounded at an annual growth rate of 21%, and our tangible book value per common share has grown at 15%.
Thanks. And now let's open up for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. We will now take our first question from Casey Haire from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Casey Haire -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Thanks, good morning guys.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Casey Haire -- Jefferies -- Analyst
I wanted to start on the buyback. The guide says for a minimum of 1.6 million shares, and I know that's the same amount of pure authorization. I think there's a little bit of confusion that -- in the market that the buyback is poised to slow. Just we'd like to get your thoughts as to the total capital return ratio in 2020 versus that $105 million level in 2019.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So we -- so the 1.6 million is what we have remaining, and we're going to see that through, as we have talked about in the past. We are currently working on increasing that buyback authority. And so we -- without providing specific numbers, that's exactly what we're going to do from that perspective. You should assume that we're going to have an increase in our buyback authority similar to what we have done in 2018 and 2019. And as long as we continue to generate and see continued progression of internal capital generation and the growth that we've outlined in the presentation, and you can safely assume that we will continue to be quite active on the buyback front.
Now, when you think about the numbers from this year of us, buying back 19 million shares over the course of ' 19, we will see if that is the same. It will depend on how things progressing over the course of the year, balance sheet growth, pipeline build, potential opportunities that show up, the portfolio acquisitions if they do down the road. So there will be some flexibility there, but we will continue being quite active on the buyback going forward.
So there is -- we don't have a -- 19 million like we did this year is unlikely to -- we are unlikely to repeat that because we see better growth opportunities this year than what we had in the past. One of the reasons as to why we bought so many shares this year is that when we sold close to $1.6 billion of residential mortgages, which did create some excess capital capacity that we had. But we'll continue being very active in it and we should assume that on average, we'll be actively buying back somewhere between $2.5 million to $3 million -- 3 million shares every quarter.
Casey Haire -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Great. Thank you. All right. So switching to NIM, first off, just to clarify, so you guys -- your 3.15% to 3.25% NIM does assume a Fed cut. What would that forecast look like if we did not get a Fed cut?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
We're pretty acid -- we're pretty neutral from the perspective of the -- at Fed cut. So again if it is just one or none. I think you'd have slightly higher projections be at the midpoint to the higher end of the range, but no rate cut sooner. We feel very good about getting there in a relatively benign environment, where you don't have much of a shift in either direction. But no doubt, what you would see happen if we do have one rate cut is similar to what happened this year, and we have $7.5 billion of assets that we'll reprice immediately. and then the -- the funding stack in the deposit side will catch over some period of time. So we don't see a meaningfully different outlook from the perspective of the range. But the ability to get to the higher to midpoint to the higher end of that range, I think is easier within a no-cut environment.
Casey Haire -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Okay, great and just digging a little deeper on the NIM outlook the originated yields in the fourth quarter were 4.28%, it looks like that's about 20 bps below your core loan yield. Do you expect -- what's the new money yield today that's layered in your NIM forecast?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. There is always -- so it's 4.25% to 4.50%. There's always some volatility in that number based on whichever business line has a better quarter relative to another. So we feel pretty good. But over the course of -- and we're confident that in 2020, the new origination yield on average over the course of the year will be right at, so it will be in line with the run-off of existing loan yields.
Casey Haire -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Okay.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
So we don't see -- again assuming the rate environment that we're talking about, right, so one cut to no cuts, right? So there is -- no, that we are very confident in that the pipeline is building at around those levels.
Casey Haire -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Okay. So around this four -- it will vary but around this 4.30% level.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
On average? Correct. On average, it will be right around that.
Casey Haire -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Okay, great. And just last one, just switching on the funding side which appears to be a lot of the -- like slide 10, I think you guys outlined a number of drivers that that are help -- are going to help you guys achieve that NIM stability this year. There is a number of them obviously, deposit beta accelerating, online, consumer CDs and borrowings. Is it possible for you guys to try to -- which are the big components or it's going to provide the most relief to funding costs in 2020, just given all the moving parts?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
I think all of those components, Casey.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I think there is a -- we've guided to this over the last couple of quarters. We are in the early stages of kind of funding stack repricing, so it's assessing the deposit side. From a wholesale borrowings perspective, I think that there is -- as we outlined there, the big step down did happen in the third and fourth quarter of this year, so you should see that component of the funding stack will continue to result in roughly somewhere approximately 5 basis points of repricing kind of quarter-over-quarter. But on the deposit side, it's across the board.
CDs have started to reprice already in January. We've been guiding to that in the last quarter call, saying that we had -- when you look at the progression of CD cost over the course -- especially in the commercial and -- consumer and commercial side, you'll see on that slide that none of it has really repriced at this point. So if you were -- I don't know if there is a -- what's the lowest hanging fruit, we think that is probably the lowest hanging fruit because that is -- those are -- again certain as to how those will -- there is more certainty around how those are going to reprice. But the broader opportunity here is across the board on consumer and commercial as well, we're still in the early stages of -- as we said, these are full relationships. We are going to protect those relationships. So we've been very mindful of not upsetting the applecart and kind of managing deposit rates the right way. But we're still in the very early stages of that.
The deposit beta which on the way up was approximately 35% to 40% as we've talked about many times, on that consumer and commercial side has only been 10%. So there is plenty of room there. And we will -- again, we're going to manage it smartly. We are very focused on retaining those relationships, but at the same time, we're confident that there is room for substantial decreases as we continue to progress in 2020.
Casey Haire -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Great, thank you.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. The two areas that really are very succinct on this thing is the CD side of this thing, we have a $1.2 billion coming due that will significantly reprice that are in a kind of nine month to 12 month CD range, and then the muni deposits that as rates have come down, we work to retain the relationship we need balances and we work to reprice the transaction-oriented municipal balances.
Operator
We will now take our next question from Steve Moss from B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead.
Steve Moss -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Good morning, guys.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Steve Moss -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Just following up on the margin here, just as we think about the first quarter margin, it seems like of the core margin here, you were 3.13%, but the 4 basis point impact from liquidity. And then I think, Jack, you said by the 10 basis point linked quarter decline in funding costs, so probably looking at it and it sounds like probably a 3.20%-ish core margin to start the quarter. Is that fair?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
So I'd say that it's, probably I must say -- so one thing that you have to factor in is that we do have witnessed, subordinated debt issuance is going to cost us a little bit in the first quarter. So we're actively working on right now and evaluating various alternatives to take out the senior notes sooner than maturity. So the first quarter is going -- it's not going to be a 3.20%. We'll be at the lower end of the range. But then as you essentially rightsize the funding stack, you eliminate that 3.5% cost in senior notes and you continue to reprice the fundings back down, given the fact that we do anticipate and we have seen in the second half of the fourth quarter, asset yields kind of abating from that perspective not decreasing any more. We feel pretty confident that we start the year at the lower end of that range and then we build up to it over the course of the year.
Steve Moss -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Okay. That's helpful, Luis. And then on loan growth here, just wondering -- talk about organic loan growth through the deck, but organic loan growth this quarter is pretty flattish to down a little bit. I'm just wondering what are the dynamics you saw this quarter, and why we didn't see more loan growth here?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, good question. So I think we guided last quarter to about $1.2 billion of commercial loan growth, and in this, we realized about $800 million. There are a couple of factors that affected that. One, we don't include there is about $100 million worth of lease -- leased assets that we included in the other asset category. We sold off about $150 million worth of non-relationship loans in the quarter. Mortgage warehouse was down about $125 million because the turn people bought mortgage side of the warehouse faster, and then the balance was just some additional payoffs -- pay downs.
So we actually had a good quarter from organic loan growth basis in between $400 million and $500 million off of well over $1 billion of originations. So that's why there is -- because of the -- some of these items have been a little bit extraordinary, it looks like there wasn't organic loan growth, but there was fairly meaningful organic loan growth.
Steve Moss -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Okay, that's helpful. And then just as we think about acquisitions going forward, whether -- what's the appetite for portfolio purchases versus bank M&A here?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
We've gone through this, our history dictates. We always are looking for portfolio acquisitions to change the asset mix and enhance the risk-adjusted returns on the revenue side. We acquire banks to find alternative funding sources. So we are constantly looking for opportunities to -- and I went through it in my comments, to reinvent the company, and we will continue to do that. We think in some cases, prices make sense and in some cases, prices don't make sense. Some -- in many cases, the asset quality doesn't make sense and in some cases, the asset quality does make sense in the portfolio acquisitions. So we kind of constantly see opportunities to look at both portfolios and other banks, and frankly, other funding sources along the way.
Steve Moss -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
All right, thank you very much.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Steve.
Operator
We will now take our next question from Alex Twerdahl from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Alex Twerdahl -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
Good morning, guys.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Alex.
Alex Twerdahl -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
I just wanted to understand on that last question on acquisitions. Just as I look at the loan growth targets for 2020, it says that it focuses on organic loan growth. So is the assumption that kind of the low end, at least to that is, should be pretty much in hands organically, and should an acquisition come along that kind of pushes you toward the top end of the range? Or acquisitions of loan portfolios just not contemplated at all in that guidance?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Your first comment is true, it's -- this is an organic number, the way we presented this. So it would be -- that would be the guidance on the net. Anything that we do over and above that will be over and above that guidance.
Alex Twerdahl -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
Okay. So that no acquisitions. And then similarly --
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Right.
Alex Twerdahl -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
The expense number of $420 million to $430 million, that's --
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah.
Alex Twerdahl -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
-- as you see it today, that doesn't contemplate any sort of acquisitions as that number might have in the past?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
That's correct.
Alex Twerdahl -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
Okay, great. And then just on the margin, you talked about the range of 3.15% to 3.25%, is that kind of a range for the full-year margin? Are you saying that each quarter should be somewhere in that 3.15% to 3.25% range, implying that we're certainly going to see some -- at least a little bit of margin expansion in the first quarter?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
It's the latter. Yes. So it's essentially, that's the range of where we see the quarterly NIM shaking out. So the full-year NIM -- of the full-year NIM is not -- unlikely to be at 3.25% because we're not going to start the year at that level. We anticipate that there's going to be a progression and expansion of that NIM, again with the big caveat regarding that we're assuming a relatively benign and stable rate environment, right. So that -- we always like that kind of throughout that disclaimer. But which are -- we are going to start -- we're going to start at the lower end of the range, and then we -- again, as we continue to maintain asset yields and reprice the funding stack, we should start seeing some nice NIM expansion over the course of the year.
Alex Twerdahl -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
Right. So it sounds to me like you guys are calling the bottom on the NIM in the fourth quarter based on what you just said?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. So again, remember that we have to -- so especially -- a little bit of the driver of the NIM of some volatility short-term is going to be how successful we are in retiring some of the higher cost debt that we have out there with the senior notes. So we did issue $275 million sub-debt at a 4% rate so that obviously, it will have a short-term impact. But then when you factor in that we're going to essentially take out the senior notes, I think that you essentially get to a net-net neutral position from the perspective of the debt that's the kind of the longer-term, longer duration that that's on the books.
But yes, we feel very good and quite confident based on what we've seen in the second half of the fourth quarter that again asset yields have started to kind of -- they have -- they've leveled out, they've settled down and then we continue to see a very nice progression of repricing in the funding stack. So you're right, we're pretty -- we're not at the bottom, we are pretty darn close.
Alex Twerdahl -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
Perfect. That's extremely helpful. And then just finally to clear up any confusion out there, the purchase accounting accretion guidance of $30 million to $35 million, that's kind of right around where you've been targeting in the past for 2020. And can you give us any sort of color on where that might go in 2021? Is that going to basically trend toward zero for next year?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
No. So in 2021, you're still going to have another $15 million to $20 million or so. So you continue to see step-downs every year. But the tail of the accretion income is pretty long. So you're going to see another step-down, or call it $10 million to $15 million, $10 million to $12 million on the accretion income side. But there's still going to be some accretion flowing through in 2021.
Alex Twerdahl -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
Perfect. Thanks for taking my questions.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
We will now take our next question from Dave Bishop from D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.
Dave Bishop -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst
Hey, good morning, gentlemen.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Dave Bishop -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst
Hey, I appreciate the disclosure in terms of deposit breakdown. Just curious, the online bank initiative, how big of a piece of the puzzle from a funding source you think that grows to, and how should we think about that from an all-in cost? I guess some of that's flowing through the marketing cost this quarter, any way to sort of benchmark what the all-in cost from that perspective is?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Sure. So we're -- we're spending approximately 25 basis points on the -- of -- of our incremental to the interest rate on building out the online channel. Now, I caveat that by saying that, let's say -- I don't know -- I don't want to say, it's not a misleading number because it is right. It's just the fact that there are obviously shared services that the online bank also uses from the perspective of other infrastructure that we have built, right? So -- but when you think about the direct expenses there associated with originating that -- kind of originating deposits through that channel, its interest rate cost approximately 25 basis points. That -- that's what it was in the second half of 2019.
So again from an interest rate perspective, we realized and are cognizant of the fact that it's -- deposits are going to be higher cost and that they're going to be more rate sensitive. But in a low rate environment or generally benign rate environment, we feel very good that it is a very efficient way to generate funding. And it is a -- a very efficient way to generate funding that allows us to continue to manage our efficiency ratio from the level we are at today and potentially decreasing it further from there.
So we very much like the funding channel. And we've talked about this for some time that this was going to be a test and learn function and so far the test and learn has worked out very much in line to exceeding expectations that we had originally thought. So you will see in that page that -- what are the key messages that we wanted to convey, the fact that there was pretty darn good growth from a spot balance perspective between the end of the third quarter and the fourth quarter, and yet you still saw that we were able to move down that cost of deposits by approximately 35 basis points from where we started. So we like the direction that business is headed.
From a perspective of how big it gets, time will tell. And it's going to -- again, it's a test and learn function and we're going to continue to tweak and dial pricing up and down, just based on whatever we see the need to be. Roughly we anticipate that by the end of 2020, it should represent somewhere between 5% to 7% of the funding stack, so should be somewhere between, you think about $22 billion to $23 billion of deposits that we have that should be somewhere between $1 billion to $1.25 billion, so deposits is what we're seeing. And again, we are -- this is -- that's what we think today, we are going to dial that up and down based on how other deposit channels also grow.
But so far, we very much like the types of relationships and accounts that are being driven through that channel and we very much like the -- how the channel has responded from the perspective of the overall customer acquisition cost and the ability to -- kind of move that pricing and dial that pricing up and down kind of almost an intermediate basis depending on what the funding needs are. It's a very efficient channel.
Dave Bishop -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst
Got it. I appreciate the color. And maybe some commentary in terms of maybe the core relationship-driven commercial real estate market, and maybe talk about the opportunities if you move into 2020 from a growth perspective?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. We continue to look at the options out there, a variety of commercial real estate projects. It's one of the great things about being around Metropolitan New York is there are as many different variations of commercial real estate opportunities as anywhere in the country. So it may be a lot of people are obviously concerned around the rent-controlled multi-family projects. There are very many other types of projects that we can get the risk-adjusted returns out of from a real estate standpoint that they are available to us in this market. So we think the path is very clear on opportunities on commercial real estate in this metropolitan area.
Dave Bishop -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst
Got it.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] We will now take our next question from Collyn Gilbert from KBW. Please go ahead.
Collyn Gilbert -- KBW -- Analyst
Thanks, good morning guys.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey Collyn.
Collyn Gilbert -- KBW -- Analyst
Just wanted to dig in a little bit to the multi-family portfolio. It looks like if I'm looking at this correctly, you guys saw growth this quarter relative to third quarter, and it looks like the loan yields kind of hung in a little bit as well. So just wanting to understand sort of how you're thinking about that portfolio? What was driving or what's going to drive the growth? And then how the New York City rent-stabilized portion is -- has been trending?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. So -- again, there are a lot of options on this. And what we've tended to do unlike other situations, we've tended to only focus on relationship-oriented multi-family deals. And frankly, relationship-oriented multi-family deals that do multiple projects. So we -- most of our multi-family clients that we originate from in our own direct origination basis do many, many -- have many, many projects and do many different types of real estate investing. So we do not do the transaction part of it, the broker originated multi-family projects where the only thing you have is, is the transaction.
So we have a -- so it's a -- in the big category multi-family, there is a lot of them that are done through the brokers, but there are -- that are done on a direct basis with real estate developers and multi-family owners along the way. So pricing has started to stabilize in that market and they are enhanced by other projects and other types of business you have from the client. So that's why you've seen kind of the yields hang in there on that period of time. It also means that we're running off some of the lower-yielding staff and adding some of the higher-yielding relationship-oriented multi-family deals.
Collyn Gilbert -- KBW -- Analyst
Okay. And then do you have the balance of what -- I understand, that's a good color, Jack, on the growth going forward, but what the balance currently is of the New York City multi-family kind of that broker originated portion?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
You mean the rent control or the total broker originated multi-family?
Collyn Gilbert -- KBW -- Analyst
Yes. No rent controlled.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
When you say yes, you mean which one.
Collyn Gilbert -- KBW -- Analyst
Sorry. Okay. New York City rent-controlled multi-family, what the balance -- the outstanding balances of that book?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
It's about 600 -- it's about $750 million. And it's subject to --
Collyn Gilbert -- KBW -- Analyst
All right. And has -- OK and has that changed -- have those balances changed much in the last few quarters?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Some of them have paid off, so yes, we had -- we've seen runoff in that book of approximately $100 million to $150 million over the second half of I guess, third and fourth quarters. And so far we have not seen any major changes in performance in the book of business or any changes in trends and delinquencies. So we don't have a lot of it. We are closely monitoring it. And we anticipate that over some period of time, a lot of those loans begin -- coming up for refinance and kind of renewals in the second half of 2020 and into 2021, and we're going to actively work on figuring out what is the kind of best course of action for that portfolio going forward. But right now, we can't point to anything that we would say is a cause for concern.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. These loans too tend to be older portfolio loans and they tend to be less than 50% loan-to-value. So that's why, we're not as concerned because of the rent-controlled aspect with the portfolio we have today, because of the general loan-to-value and there are more matured loans so that the repayments of the debt service coverages are very strong.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
The vast majority of that portfolio if not all of it -- I think probably all of it does, but the vast majority of it comes from the acquisition of Astoria, and dating all the way back to when we acquired Hudson Valley. So from an LTV and an underwriting perspective, that does not -- we are not concerned about that portfolio.
Collyn Gilbert -- KBW -- Analyst
Okay. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you for that. And then just shifting to opex and efficiency, and Jack, again you guys are performance-oriented and operating leverage and all of that. But if we just look, so your opex, you've held at this $420 million kind of when we think about core opex since 2018. And is there going to be a point where that has to change or there is going to be investments that's going to come down the pike? Just trying to sort of -- it's an impressive hold and I just wonder how long that can last?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I mean, our view is that can last for whatever. So 40% is what we believe is the right level for that. And we make investments. We are constantly making investments in people and technology along the way, but we are balancing that by taking costs out of other areas. So we are constantly changing that mix. So our view is that that will continue to change or continue to be consistent at the 40%.
Remember too, it's a numerator or denominator issue. So the numerator is revenue and the denominator is expense, so it's just not an expense issue. It's also the generation of revenue and creating that operating leverage along the way. So I said this a couple of times and some people take this the right way and some the wrong. But we actually have less people that produce higher revenue per FTE and earnings per FTE than pure significantly higher that frankly gets paid more money. So we believe in that model and it creates the type of efficiencies that we want.
There are two big reasons why we are more efficient. One, we're not in inefficient businesses like mortgage or like asset management or like a big branch system. So that's one reason we're efficient. The second is the dynamic that I just mentioned. We have lower numbers of people that produce higher revenue and earnings per FTE than peers, that frankly get paid more. So that dynamic kind of works to keep the efficiency ratio about where it is today. I don't think that -- I don't think it can get into the 35% or below range. So if that's another -- just a follow-on, I think there is a limit to how efficient you can be in financial services. But -- and I think it is in that kind of 35% to 40% range, we targeted 40% as an ongoing target on this thing.
Collyn Gilbert -- KBW -- Analyst
Okay. Okay, that's helpful. And then just one last housekeeping item for you, Luis. On the accretion guide of that $30 million to $35 million, significantly less than what you guys posted obviously this year. And just thinking about that trajectory there of how you see that going and just -- is there -- I mean if pay down slow then -- I mean I'm stating the obvious, I guess, that accretion number could end up being higher? Just trying to sort of reconcile the patterns there because I think that came in higher than what you were originally anticipating for 2019 as well.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. So the pay downs -- so the reason for being higher than what we thought in '19 was the fact that yes, a lot of the remaining mark on the Astoria book was driven by the residential mortgage book and so the mortgage pay-offs accelerated pretty substantially over the course of the year. So we've been running at call it $250 million to $300 million a year in '18, and then in '19, we had close to $650 million to runoff, right?
So that's certainly was one of the key drivers as to why that was higher than what we thought. And there's always a little bit of a risk from that perspective that you're going to have on providing accretion income guide, which is there is -- it's going to be based on overall performance of the book over some period of time. What remains today is not so much on the residential mortgage side, but actually more so on the multi-family side. And on that portfolio, we have -- without having a magic crystal ball, we do have a little bit more visibility because it is not as -- it is rate sensitive too obviously from a perspective of repayments and so forth, but it is not as efficient a marketplace as residential mortgage is.
The minute that you start seeing five, seven and 10 loan origination yields in the residential mortgage side that drop below 25 basis points than where they were, you start seeing a substantial pickup in pay-offs and increases. The multi-family side and the CRE side of the house does not behave as efficiently as a residential mortgage. So we feel pretty -- we feel very good -- pretty confident about the $30 million to $35 million. And don't think about it from the perspective of it being a level over the course of the year because remember these are -- it never happens level. There's always higher tail. The tail gets lower as you go over the year.
So you'll see that similar to what's happened in the last couple of years where we started with about $27 million, $28 million of accretion income per quarter, and then that moves to $25 million, moves to $20 million. Third quarter was about $17 million. This quarter was $19 million because we had some big pay-offs and some specific transactions. But we started seeing -- it's going to follow the same type of pattern which is it's going to be higher at the beginning of the year and then it's going to fall off over the course of 2020. And then into 2021, we'll follow the same type of pattern as well. But we feel $35 million is a pretty good number. But we feel pretty confident that based on the mix of business that remains that has the mark on it, it should -- we should be pretty close to that number.
Collyn Gilbert -- KBW -- Analyst
Okay. Okay, that's great. I will leave it there. Thanks guys.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you.
Operator
We will now take our next question from Steve Duong from RBC Capital Markets.
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hey, good morning guys.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Good morning. Just on the -- just going back to expenses, in the quarter, other expense line, that was a little high. That was -- I think it was higher marketing and retirement plans. Is that correct?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
That is correct. So -- out of the increase -- the increase is about $3 million. About half of that was driven by marketing and about 30% or 40% of that other half or the $1.5 million was net cost on pension and retirement benefits.
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay, great. And how much of that do you expect to gravitate down maybe to $17 million level or at all possible?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. That's -- you're going to see a run rate that's going to be a much closer to what third quarter was versus Q4. So those are -- the advertising is always going to -- marketing will always be a little bit of a volatile line item, depending on what we do from either promotional perspective or -- to the discussion that we're having before regarding [Technical Issues]
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Got it. And so if -- yeah.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah go ahead.
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
I guess, so if that goes down a little bit, then I mean do you think that you could possibly get your 2020 expense to below a $420 million line?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
I think that anything is possible. Is it probable? No. I think that we have -- we have a pretty good handle on the investments that we want to make from the perspective of hiring a credential banking teams and business development officers, and we're building out a lot on the -- especially on the deposit gathering channels on the commercial side with property management and legal services, and the innovation and finance team that we hired.
So we feel pretty good that our -- we've held that expense line item relatively flat for the past three years if you factor in everything related to Astoria. And right now the dynamic that you're going to see going forward is that now that we get to about 80 financial centers that are -- that are going to be up by the end of 3/31, you're not going to see the same rate and pace of financial center consolidations that you have seen in the past, which is one of the things that has resulted in us alone to kind of reduce and maintain that opex relatively flat.
We are much more concerned this year with again maintaining that roughly $420 million kind of low-end, but also kind of getting back to kind of really meaningfully growing the top line revenue side of the house. And again, that does require investment and we see the needs and we want to continue to invest particularly, on the deposit gathering side. So we will be actively looking to hire folks and get back to getting kind of more robust and broader distribution channels on the deposit side, again. So is it going to be below $420 million? Unlikely. But we feel very good about that range, and we feel good about the -- kind of the midpoint to lower end of that range.
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Great. And then just moving on to your loan portfolio, if we were just looking at the equipment finance portfolio ex-Santander, can you just give us some color what was going on in the quarter in that portfolio?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
In which one, in equipment, in particular?
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Yeah.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
It's been flat. It's been relatively flat. The new origination yields that we're seeing in that market for the type of business that we originate, which are kind of higher credit -- good and higher credit quality middle-market commercial borrowers have gotten extremely tight. So you're not going to see organic growth in equipment finance. We see better risk-adjusted returns and better credit spreads in other components of the portfolio, mainly diversified CRE, all of the projects that we're doing on the affordable housing side, as well as public sector and some of the other more diverse commercial lines. So equipment is -- it's over $2 billion today.
We -- the -- what -- the portfolio we acquired from Santander is exactly what we thought it was, and then in many respects, it's actually a little bit better just given that we've had some nice fundings and we inherited some funding commitments from Santander there as well, which has actually worked out very well because we -- we've actually been able to grow those relationships slightly over the course of the quarter since we closed it. But we are not -- the focal point is not on equipment finance going forward because credit spreads have -- are not really what we want them to be right now.
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Got it. And is that similarly the same story on your ABL side?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Absolutely, 100%. And we think that that is -- that's a market, that's a sector of the market that you're not going to see growing organically because there is a broad universe of competitors, not just banks, but more so credit funds and alternative asset managers and insurance companies that have jumped into the, into the ABL game. And from a spread perspective and a pricing perspective, we don't like what we're seeing there. But more so than on the pricing side, we're starting to see some -- we've seen creeping into that business a combination of some enterprise value lending that a lot of market participants are adding on to kind of what traditional ABL that we really don't like. So you're not going to see that business grow, organically.
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Got it, got it. And then just moving on to your warehouse line, how much in commitments you have today relative to where you were a year ago?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
So the portfolio has grown about 25% year-over-year from a commitments perspective. Facilities, well, the percentage of facility usage has always been approximately 55% to 65%, always, always in that range. You never want to be a warehouse lender where your -- the loan lending relationship or where your relationship has been used to its full extent. They might be able to use it and you have the capability to use it for a short period of time to a high utilization rate. But in the warehouse lending business, you really want to focus on client that have diversified sources and that are managing that utilization rate to somewhere call it on average about 60%. But year-over-year, commitments in the book -- the amount of committed facilities has increased about 25%.
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Yeah. Are you guys still seeing that continue -- like somewhat continuing in 2020?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. We -- one of the good things about being a slightly bigger bank, the one we were before that you can obviously go and provide financing to larger independent originators as well. So we -- that's a book that we realize and are cognizant of the fact that it had some volatility quarter-over-quarter, which I know is not -- not the most favorite thing that folks like to see. And so, therefore, we get that is, it is a mortgage business after all, so there is some volatility to it. But we have a very consistent track record over the last five years of growing that business very steadily.
When we inherited that business in the Sterling merger in 2000 -- in late '13, that business at about $200 million in outstanding. This quarter we had 1.3 -- just under $1.3 billion in average outstanding. That business has grown very nicely and it's going to continue to do so because the larger balance sheet size allows us to provide financing to larger and independent originators which is again very scalable and very efficient. The growth in that book has been essentially on top of the same infrastructure that we inherited about five or six years ago. We like it a lot, but it's never going to be a disproportionate side of our business because we understand that the volatility aspect of it is not -- it's not an investor bank paper, we get that.
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Understood. And just one last one from me. Your securities book, you're looking to get it down to 15% at the end of the year on earning assets. What can we expect as far as a quarterly runoff in the book?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
So it's more -- so we want to get there from the perspective of growing the rest of the balance sheet more so than running off any particular component of it. However, with that said, we continue to see the trend that we have been seeing for the past two quarters, given the rate environment that we've had. The book, particularly the MBS book, the municipal securities book of about $2.5 billion really does not cash flow much on a monthly basis, which we like a lot because we're sitting on a substantial amount of unrealized gains there. But the MBS book cash flow is at somewhere between $75 million to $100 million per quarter.
So if you -- we did absolutely nothing, and we did not reinvest a single security in the course of the year, you would have approximately somewhere between $300 million to $400 million grown up in the book. That's not the intention. The intention is to get to that target level by growing the rest of the balance sheet and just maintaining the securities flat. So we will be reinvesting, but it's a -- if we did nothing, you'll have about $400 million runoff.
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Got it. I appreciate the color, guys.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
We will now take our next question from Matthew Breese from Stephens Incorporation. Please go ahead.
Matthew Breese -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst
Hey good morning.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Matt.
Matthew Breese -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst
Jack, just focusing on your comment in regards to late-stage credit, a couple of related questions. So the first is, as we wind back the tape and we look at all the portfolio deals you've ever done, I was hoping for a little bit of review here. So where do balances stand in totality for the portfolio purchases? Where do balances stand today versus where you -- when you purchased them? How they performed from a credit perspective versus your initial expectations? And if there were marks along the way on these books, could you give us some idea of what the average mark was just for credit comfort?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
It's a long list, Matt.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
That's a really long list, Matt. I am not sure we can go to reach the portfolio we've acquired here. There's been eight portfolio acquisitions over the period of time. But I would tell you that for the most part, what we have tried to do from -- and I'll start from a macro standpoint. What we've tried to do is create a diversified mix of portfolios in the company. And there are different types and times, they are going to be more or less favorable relative to the risk-adjusted returns and frankly the growth rates in those portfolios.
So we just had this conversation about equipment in ABL. One of the reasons we looked at the Santander portfolio, we essentially bought a year's worth of production at a really good yield, at a really good quality compared to what we would be able to do today through the year on given the market dynamics of equipment. So we were very opportunistic with the portfolio. By buying it there, we basically bought the whole year's worth of volume that we would have expected on the equipment side.
Luis mentioned ABL, the yield -- the returns on ABL and the credit quality on the structure of the deals that things are -- people are doing in the market, mostly non-banks have really diminished over the last several years. So we've tried to -- as we purchase portfolios, we try to look at which portfolios we have an opportunity to continue to diversify with the right risk-adjusted returns out there. Some of them we buy and we frankly one down because it was a one-time buy, most of them we use as a platform to grow from and to expand.
We believe -- again, the most current example, the Santander portfolio, we believe that their relationships that were incumbent in that portfolio allow us to go back to those clients and expand the relationship, both on the equipment side and other banking services. So each portfolio has a different dynamic and a different need going forward. But at the end of the day, we're trying to take this mix, both organic, acquired by banks and acquired portfolio to create the right risk-adjusted return out there.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
To give you some big picture stats, on average, the credit marks that we've taken on these portfolios. So the interest rate marks in each portfolio have been different just based on whatever the interest rate environment was at the time. So the interest rates are -- from an interest rate perspective, marks have been kind of all over the place. From a credit perspective, on average, it's been about 2.5% throughout the portfolio that we have acquired. Each one of those portfolios, the existing book of business when we acquired has performed very much in line or better than what we had originally thought. And so one of the reasons for -- in 2019, for us having a higher accretion income level that we had originally anticipated is the fact that as some of these assets were lost, have they performed better than what you thought they were going to particularly purchase credit impaired loans. Have they performed better than what you had originally marked them at? And that always results in some multi-accretion income side because if something pays off where you had to mark on it and you didn't lose that amount of money then you're actually going to get to accrete that back in the income, right?
So that's one of the reasons as to why it's -- it has outperformed is the fact that the -- that accretion income has been higher than what we had originally thought is the fact that a lot of the portfolios that we have acquired have actually performed in line or better than expectations. The one portfolio that has not moved in our favor was the Advantage Transportation finance transaction that we did in March of 2018. The existing portfolio performed very much in line and slightly better than what we had originally anticipated.
But when we go back to the earnings calls and we announce that transaction, we had always be guided to the fact that we were going to essentially tweak the origination engine that we inherited from Advantage, or we're going to move it a little bit further upstream because there was a component of credits that they -- that Advantage focused on that we did not like from a credit quality perspective.
And what we have found over the course of the last two years in line with what we're talking about in the equipment side is the fact that credit spreads in that industry to us don't make sense. And so today, if you were to ask where does that portfolio stand, that portfolio was actually about $110 million lower when we acquired it. So it was $457 million when we acquired it. Today we're at just over $300 million or so in remaining outstanding balances. That portfolio by design, we have essentially kind of stepped off the throttle because we don't like what we see from a perspective of credit spreads and risk-adjusted returns in the business.
Other than that, the other business lines that we have and the other portfolios that we have acquired, I think that the financial performance kind of speaks for itself. You have not seen big hiccups from a credit perspective, you've seen kind of a pretty steady progression of what we've guided to from a perspective of what those portfolios are going to result from an incoming and expense perspective. So as we've talked about in the past, the benefit of acquiring a portfolio in today's M&A world is the fact that, again, going back to the Santander example, we had nine months that we were working on that transaction. We had the opportunity to select the assets that we wanted.
We had the opportunity to essentially under -- we're underwriting review every asset that we acquired. We feel very comfortable and that's what we talked about in the past. To us, these portfolio acquisitions realizing they are not organic originations from a risk perspective to us they are because they go through the exact same level of vetting, end of due diligence that we would do for any organic origination, and we get the benefit of essentially marketing it upfront. So that's why we like it. I know that some folks don't consider an organic origination better than an acquisition. I -- we can debate that as much as everybody wants.
We very much like the aspect and the ability of us being able to reunderwrite the entirety of the portfolio and marking it upfront. We feel that that's a good way to continue to grow the business and allocate capital and liquidity.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
And the other add I'll make on this, lives depend upon what price you pay. So the dynamics on this are you mark up -- you want to make sure that the credit quality is exactly what you want it to be. You want to make sure that your ongoing business is what you think it's going to be. But then you get to the point where you're buying it at a certain price and you're marking it at a certain price. So the net result of -- the answer to the first -- the initial question is every one of the portfolios has worked out from a return standpoint. We've got there may be in different ways than we designed it but we -- each of them have met or exceeded the targeted return in some cases because it's performed better credit quality-wise, in some cases, it's because we bought it at a discount or a price that made sense through a different cycle. So we're very comfortable with these things. And again, it's all about -- there is multiple factors that go into this thing.
Matthew Breese -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst
Right. No, that's extremely helpful. And then maybe just tying this into what we saw from a special mention and substandard loan progression standpoint, were any of those, the increase from acquired books or what categories were the end, your work at expectations? And what timeframe do you think we should see those resolve?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. So the increase was driven by commercial real estate credits and a couple of ABL credits. One of the ABL credit was an acquired credit. We feel very good about the difference of the other three credits that we have talked about from an ABL perspective in '19, that we have now fully gotten behind us as Jack alluded to in his comments. And so there -- we are off our books and fully exited. In every one of those situations, the assets are and the loan relationships are performing, and they are very well secured.
So we have a combination of good collateral. We have a combination of good marks on each one of these. And we feel good about being able to work out on these in a relatively short time frame. So in the next quarter or two, we feel pretty confident that we're going to be able to exit these relationships. We'll work out in a way that makes sense, and it should not have a big impact from a credit quality perspective or charge-off perspective.
Matthew Breese -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst
Okay. Can you talk a little bit about the Deloitte and Innovation Finance Group, two recent announcements? I don't think I have a good handle on what these are poised to do near-term, long-term. Could you just help me kind of understand what the impacts might be over the next year or two years from these two -- the partnership and the Innovation Finance Group?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. So the Deloitte side of this thing, what we -- we've been working with Deloitte for now probably 18 months or so. They have done a number of things for us, not the least of which was they provide us with the tools on the artificial intelligence side, as we've used AI, we've used their kind of machines to put in place and a variety of different areas. But the Deloitte side of it is multiple areas. So one, a simple thing, Deloitte over the years have build up a very, very large technology support mechanism. We do -- we started a process with them where we do simple things like all the laptops and all the fulfillment of devices in the company now is fulfilled by them rather than frankly the fragmented way we were doing it before. They provide us with the IT helpdesk. Again the metrics on their performance on IT helpdesk versus what we were using before are dramatically different. Third is, they look at helping us put everything into the cloud. So we're using their mechanisms that go into the cloud. And then continued on that we're using them to do projects like the voice-activated -- internally voice-activated kind of artificial intelligence that provides internal support and external support to things like call centers.
So there are many, many different pieces where we're using them. And frankly, we are already experiencing performance levels that are significantly more than what we were doing ourselves or we were outsourcing to other people and essentially at the same cost if you bake in all the cost because the other question will come up is, is this a lot more expensive? The answer in total is no. We are basically moving costs from one area to another and the performance is much higher. So unlike the big banks that can go on and they're spending capital where they're building all these things themselves, this is our answer to or partially an answer to how we can be very contemporary in terms of providing the right levels of technology spends and actuation of our technology dollars. So that's how the partnership works.
And again, the final part of this we'll continue to provide the blocks on our AI processes, as we work to take all manual processes out of the company and automate them or outsource them going forward. So another -- a little bit of an answer to Collyn's question about efficiency too we're using technology to drive down -- ultimately drive down the costs and create better efficiencies along the way.
The technology team that we have is a team that is focused on a very specific niche and it's actually lending and deposit gathering to companies that have kind of residual types of earning stream. So this is not venture lending and it's not spec lending. It is lending against software companies that have a variety of cash flows coming in from the contracts they have. So that's a successful group that has worked for a couple of different very highly recognized businesses on the technology side, and they are already off to a really good start both on, again the lending side and also the deposit gathering side.
Matthew Breese -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst
Just a follow-up there. Could you give us a sense for the team you hired, the size of their book from their prior institution, both on the loan and deposit side that they're looking to recapture?
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
To be honest, I don't know. And it's -- this is a three person team. By the way, it's not 30 or 40 people.
Matthew Breese -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst
Understood. Okay. Last one and just on the extent we might see share repurchases. Luis, we should talk in regards to share repurchases, perhaps in terms of capital goals in regards to tangible common equity to tangible assets. Is the long-term goal still to get to around 8% to 8.25%? And should we think about share repurchases as a tool to help you get there as essentially a plug perhaps?
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
The answer is yes to all of the above. But listen, we generate a lot of capital and one of the reasons for us kind of moving a little bit away from that, providing that type of guidance is that similar will happen in 2019, so we had robust share repurchase activity. We generate sufficient capital that we don't -- we didn't really to -- into too much of that -- into the capital ratio. So we anticipate that the balance sheet starts growing again this year relative to 2019. Remember that we -- we're not anticipating any major sales of assets like we had with the residential mortgages earlier in the year, which created a lot of excess capital on the balance sheet.
So we think that the balance sheet gets back to growing and that's the reason that's why we're being a little bit more conservative on the -- kind of the outlook for buyback. So it's still going to be meaningful. We're still going to use it as a tool to get to that longer-term target. But that is a longer-term target. I don't see a scenario barring some substantial growth opportunity either organic or on the acquisition front. I do not envision that we will get to 8.25% by the end of this year.
Matthew Breese -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst
Okay. That's all I had. Thanks guys.
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
I appreciate. Thanks, Matt.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
This is the end of our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to our host.
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, follow -- and thanks a lot for following us through the year. Actually, I really want to thank our colleagues and our clients and our shareholders, obviously, and investors. We hope you buy the stock. And in all seriousness, we are turning our attention from kind of repositioning the balance sheet. You have a company that in an environment in 2018 where you had Fed increases in rates. And then in 2019, just a reversal to the three decreases and it's enabled us to reposition the balance sheet and turn our attention now in the 2020 on kind of getting back to creating that positive operating leverage, where we're growing revenues faster than expenses.
So we appreciate you all following us. And if you have any questions, give us a call. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
Operator
[Operator Closing remarks]
Duration: 72 minutes
Call participants:
Jack L. Kopnisky -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Luis Massiani -- Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Casey Haire -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Steve Moss -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst
Alex Twerdahl -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
Dave Bishop -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst
Collyn Gilbert -- KBW -- Analyst
Steve Duong -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Matthew Breese -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst
More STL analysis
All earnings call transcripts
The New Generation of Self-Created Utopias
THE EAST WIND COMMUNITY is hidden deep in the Ozarks of southern Missouri, less than 10 miles from the Arkansas border, surrounded by jagged hills and tawny fields. Getting there requires traversing country roads that rise, dip and twist through chicken-wire-fenced farmsteads and grazing pastures cluttered with rusty agricultural equipment until you reach 1,145 acres of largely undeveloped highland forest, where cedar, oak, pine and mulberry create a dense canopy. Beneath that are 27 buildings and structures, including four large dormitories, nine personal shelters, a kitchen and dining facility, an automobile shop, a nut butter manufacturing plant and a cold-storage warehouse, all built over the years by the community since its founding in 1974. Outside, farm animals — six piglets, 50 chickens, several dozen brown-and-white cows — crunch through the carpet of winter leaves.
Nearby, a pair of women make their way down a muddy field, one pushing a wheelbarrow, to a weathered-gray wooden barn where they’ll draw gallons of milk from their dairy cows. A reedy man with a long, sandy mullet presses a chain saw to the base of a tree trunk. People stop each other on the dirt paths, asking about the understaffed forestry program, or recounting anecdotes about going into town to sort through credit card charges. Everyone has somewhere to be, yet no one is hurried. There are no smartphones in sight. The collective feels like a farm, a work exchange and a bustling household rolled into one, with much work to be done but many hands to be lent.
East Wind is what its 72 residents call an intentional community, a modern descendant of the utopian colonies and communes of centuries past where individuals share everything from meals, chores and living space to work, income, domestic responsibilities and the burden of self-governance. The term intentional community dates to the late 1940s, when the Inter-Community Exchange — an organization formed in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in the wake of World War II to help promote peaceful, cooperative living arrangements (in the hope of eradicating war altogether) — changed its name to the Fellowship of Intentional Communities; the founders felt the new title better conveyed the deliberateness with which these groups were assembling. The members of East Wind, for example, range in age from infancy to 76: Some have lived here for more than three decades, but around half of the population is part of a new wave, people in their late 20s and early 30s who joined in the last four years. These newer residents moved to East Wind to wean themselves off fossil fuels, grow their own food, have a greater say in how their society is run and live in less precarious financial circumstances.
According to Sky Blue, the 39-year-old executive director of the Foundation for Intentional Community and a former member of the Virginia-based commune Twin Oaks, which was founded in 1967, the number of intentional communities listed in the FIC’s directory nearly doubled between 2010 and 2016 (the last year the directory was published), to roughly 1,200. Although the number of people living in these communities is hard to pin down — the demographic is often deliberately off the grid — Blue estimates that there are currently around 100,000 individuals residing in them. “There’s an obvious growth trend that you can chart,” he said; millennials “get this intentional community thing more than people in the past.”
THE UNITED STATES HAS been a laboratory for experiments in alternative living since its founding. The English Puritans and Pilgrims who, wishing to escape the oppression and persecution of the Church of England, fled to America in the early 17th century to create smaller societies where they could live according to their faith were followed, notably, by the Transcendentalists in 1830s New England, who sought to distance themselves from the ruthlessness of the Industrial Revolution and instead lead a life driven by Romantic ideals.
In 1841, George and Sophia Ripley, Unitarians inspired by that Transcendentalist ethos, bought a 188-acre parcel of hills and pinewood forests in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, where they started one of the country’s earliest and most influential utopian communities, called Brook Farm. To fund the project, the couple created a joint stock company with 10 other initial investors; they sold shares for $500, promising investors 5 percent of annual profits, which they hoped to earn by selling handmade clothing, collecting tuition from a private school run by Sophia and offering tours to curious outsiders for a small fee. George even wrote to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the founder of Transcendentalism, in 1840, in hopes that the movement’s putative leader might join or otherwise invest in his social experiment, arguing that, at Brook Farm, “thought would preside over the operations of labor, and labor would contribute to the expansion of thought” in order to achieve “industry without drudgery.”
Because Brook Farm aspired to so many goals — abolishing the class system, promoting gender parity, dividing labor equitably, privileging intellectual and leisure pursuits, promoting self-improvement — it attracted social reformers and early feminists, theologians and authors (Nathaniel Hawthorne was a founding member). Though it peaked at just 32 people and was officially shuttered in 1847 after being devastated by debt, smallpox and a fire, it became an American model for subsequent utopian projects. Over the following decades, more communities, including the Amana Colonies in Iowa and the Oneida Colony in upstate New York, served as sanctuaries from materialism and modernity. By the early 1900s, though, many of these had collapsed under the weight of financial pressures, ideological strife and tensions between the fantasy of social enlightenment and the realities of manual labor and working-class living conditions.
It wasn’t until the decades after World War II, when large numbers of Americans began questioning their nation’s sociopolitical and environmental policies, that the desire to create alternative societies was renewed, leading to the “hippie communes” that would become indelible features of the 20th-century cultural landscape. Places like Strawberry Fields in Southern California, The Farm in central Tennessee and Drop City in rural Colorado encapsulated the radical freedom, social experimentation and consciousness expansion that came to define the 1960s and 1970s. By borrowing openly from the psychedelic movement, artist collectives such as Ant Farm, Fluxus and Art Workers’ Coalition, as well as subcultures like the Merry Pranksters, the Nature Boys and, too, the rising environmentalist movement — some of which had emerged in response to the Vietnam War — these new communes tapped into an iconoclastic strain of society that embraced socialist ideals and Eastern philosophical tenets (including detachment, spontaneity and pacifism), rejecting many of the prevailing middle-class values of the time, including the primacy of the nuclear family and the zeal for conspicuous consumption (upon joining The Farm, for instance, all members took vows of poverty). Many of these communes, lacking any codified organizational structure and struggling to cultivate steady income, eventually faltered, but they had already achieved a kind of dubious cultural immortality, ultimately becoming the nation’s measure for the alternative living arrangements and utopian enterprises that followed.
WHILE HIPPIE COMMUNES have become a cliché, their DNA has nevertheless been passed down to some of today’s intentional communities. Consider Cedar Moon, tucked inside a state park on seven acres of farmland near the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. Up until 2004, the property was rented out to a rotating cast of free-spirited artists, activists and musicians, who lived in two old-growth timber-frame houses. When a developer offered the owner $1.5 million to convert the land into a housing development, longtime residents banded together to save it from a fate that would not only have left them homeless, but was antithetical to their values. In February 2005, 16 residents raised $125,000 in a month to buy the developer’s option contract — effectively removing the immediate threat — and then scrambled to secure the $1.5 million required to buy the property (nearly half of which, ironically, came from bank loans) over the next year.
In addition to the two original houses and a ramshackle barn, the property now consists of a sauna, yurt, outdoor kitchen, performance stage, composting-toilet outhouse and elaborate, brightly-painted gazebo that the 20 residents, who built everything themselves, call the T-Whale. Several of the structures are made of cob, a composite of clay, sand and straw that was popularized in England in the late Middle Ages and is extremely energy-efficient because of its high thermal mass. Almost everyone earns income outside of the community — Cedar Moon is not technically a commune according to the FIC definition — and current members, primarily people in their 30s and 40s and their children, include several teachers, a therapist, a director at a nonprofit and an accountant. While everyone keeps their finances separate, they share groceries, appliances (there’s one washer and dryer) and operate based on consensus. “It’s such an anticapitalist thing, just to share,” said Brenna Bell, an environmental lawyer who lives there. “Our economy relies on growth. It relies on people consuming. And we are going very intentionally in the opposite direction.”
Members must contribute 10 hours of labor each week, which might include tending the apple orchard, milking the herd of goats or cooking for the community (living expenses total around $600 a month). Cedar Moon isn’t off the power grid, but its residents have a dramatically smaller carbon footprint than the average American because they share resources, grow much of their own produce, use composting toilets and heat their homes with wood-burning stoves. Vinnie Inzano, a 30-year-old graduate student in marriage and family therapy, moved to Cedar Moon a year and a half ago because he didn’t want to be “plugged into systems that are causing collapse,” he said; he feels the community offers a better way of coexisting with the environment, “combating the story of extraction.”
Earthaven, which consists of 329 densely forested acres within North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, and was founded in 1994 by 18 people in their 30s and 40s, takes sustainability even more seriously. The community of roughly 100 people, which member Chris Farmer described as “overeducated suburban refugees,” is entirely off the grid. Several solar panels, a micro-hydropower system and smaller photovoltaic installations scattered throughout the property’s hills provide all the necessary energy for residents, who are divided into 11 smaller neighborhoods, each with anywhere from one to 14 homes made of earthen plaster, straw bale and lumber felled on the land. Rachel Fee, a 39-year-old herbalist, moved to Earthaven in 2017 after five years living outside Asheville, N.C. She wanted a more communal lifestyle that fit her ideals and didn’t push her to work relentlessly; here, she’s no longer “inundated with the idea that productivity is your self-worth,” she said. But Fee was also clear that her living arrangement was uniquely challenging, requiring a willingness to fully cohabit with others. Her 800-square-foot, reddish-brown straw-bale home sits on a gently sloping hill that she shares with 20 people living in nine structures huddled closely together. The residents get their water from the same spring and bathe in the same bathhouse. “This is not an idealistic situation,” she said. “It’s not running away from the world and sticking our head in the sand — it’s reinventing the wheel.”
IN 2017 BJORN GRINDE and Ranghild Bang Nes, researchers with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, co-authored a paper on the quality of life among North Americans living in intentional communities. Along with David Sloan Wilson, director of the evolutionary studies program at Binghamton University, and Ian MacDonald, a graduate assistant, they contacted more than 1,000 people living in 174 communities across the U.S. and Canada and asked them to rate their happiness level on the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), a globally recognized measurement tool. They compared these results to a widely cited 2008 study by the psychologists William Pavot and Ed Diener, which surveyed past studies that used the scale to analyze 31 disparate populations — including Dutch adults, French-Canadian university students and the Inuit of northern Greenland — and discovered that members of intentional communities scored higher than 30 of the 31 groups. Living in an intentional community, the authors concluded, “appears to offer a life less in discord with the nature of being human compared to mainstream society.” They then hypothesized why that might be: “One, social connections; two, sense of meaning; and three, closeness to nature.”
Though many residents of intentional communities are undoubtedly frustrated by climate inaction and mounting economic inequality, others are joining primarily to form stronger social bonds. According to a study published last year by researchers at the University of California San Diego, more than three-quarters of American adults now experience moderate to high levels of loneliness — rates that have more than doubled over the last 50 years. Despite rising housing costs across the country, more Americans are living alone today than ever before. As Boone Wheeler, a 33-year-old member of East Wind, told me, “There are literal health consequences to loneliness: Your quality of life goes down due to lack of community — you will die sooner.”
Last February, Sumner Nichols, a 29-year-old who grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to East Wind four years ago, invited me to visit the community, which was originally established by a group of men and women who had been living at Twin Oaks and decided they wanted to use the knowledge and experience they accumulated to start their own commune. After amassing a handful of followers during stops in Vermont and Massachusetts, the fledgling group eventually settled in the Ozarks because the land was cheap and adjacent to water. The residents, whose commitment to industry has helped ensure East Wind’s longevity, crafted rope hammocks by hand in partnership with Twin Oaks in the 1970s before launching their own jarred nut-butter business in the early 1980s; their products, which are mainly sold across the Midwest, typically gross between $2 million and $3 million annually. All adult members of East Wind must work 35 hours per week in various capacities, whether cooking, gardening, milling lumber, maintaining infrastructure, looking after the animals or working in the manufacturing plant. Because it’s a relatively modest schedule, residents have enough free time to cultivate personal passions: Nichols practices wildlife photography, while other members produce and record music, study herbal medicine and create ceramics using the community kiln.
Even in the dead of winter, the property is stunning, with its undulating textures of ridges, glades and limestone escarpments. It was obvious how living here could reconnect people to the land, letting them hike, climb, swim and harvest in a way that is beyond reach for most Americans. As we passed a three-story dormitory painted Egyptian blue, Nichols told me that, as a college student in the late 2000s, he tumbled down what he calls the “climate change research hole,” reading websites that pored over grim scientific projections about an increasingly warmer planet. He’d joined the Bloomington, Indiana, chapter of the Occupy movement for a while, but saw the blaze of indignation dwindle to fumes without any lasting political victories. Afterward, Nichols felt wholly disillusioned by the corporations and government organizations that he felt had a stranglehold on his life. “It’s going to go how it goes,” he recalled thinking, so “how do you want to live in it?” After discovering several intentional communities online — many find East Wind and others through simple Google searches — he concluded that joining one was “just a more comfortable way of living right now.”
As evening approached, we met several residents who had decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather by gathering at one of East Wind’s “swimming holes” — sandbanks that run alongside Lick Creek and provide easy swimming access. As the setting sun glinted off the gently rippling water, one 31-year-old resident, who goes by the mononym Indo and who had been at East Wind for five and a half years, discussed what brought him to the community: “When I was in Babylon,” he said, using the term members of East Wind half-sarcastically deploy to refer to mainstream society, “all I did was follow economics.” While the residents have similar issues and problems as people outside of an intentional community, he added, here they were free from the cutthroat hierarchies that dominated the broader culture. “Instead of your boss telling you what to do, it turns into a social relationship,” he said. “We’re just reframing it from a different perspective.” Indeed, if there is any sense of romanticism running through the community — one that harks back to Brook Farm’s belief in a daily life in which individual freedoms are more fully realized and moral convictions more faithfully observed — it lies in the notion that none of us, actually, have to be complicit to political, social and economic forces with which we don’t agree.
But unless people are raised in an intentional community or something closely resembling one, they must still find a way to relinquish whatever perch they’ve already carved out for themselves before moving to one of these places. The choice is reminiscent of a line from Henry Thoreau’s “Walden” (1854), in which the Transcendentalist author assures the reader that if he were to follow a more intrepid path, he “will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws will be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense…. He will live with the license of a higher order of beings.” There will always, however, be the daunting task of letting go.
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