When you buy your first house?

Ok, I am sorry, you convinced me. Since I love silver 360's lets see some more shots of yours.

 

NNO has a high count, so does AllanLambo, so I'm not sure the high post count is gonna help much, and, who cares? Hang out here if you want to.

Just the "360@20" is a little obnoxious and I guess over the top bragging annoys some of the folks here.

 

Should buying a house always be the first "investment" one makes?

I've been thinking about the house buying topic myself. I went through the disaster that was the dot com world a few years ago and from a nice high, had a crashing low. I've been taking it easy for a few years, consulting when I have the time, and putting most of my attention on raising my kids and taking care of family issues. Well, one of those issues resolved itself for the worst recently with the passing of my father. Out of this unfortunate situation I will have some money that I need to decide what to do with (and no, buying a 360 is not what I'm going to do, ha!). I will also finally have the time to refocus on making some money and building for the future.

To buy or not buy. Let's pick a number and say it's $150k since that's what it would cost me for a simple house here in rural California (i don't want a 4000sq.ft. house). I could:

1) buy a house for cash. because of mistakes I made in the dot com years, that's probably the only way I'll be able to buy one for the next few years (doubt anyone will lend to me). Results of this are: A) I'd save the $800 a month I'm spending on rent now, but B) with the availability of cheap land out here, I'd be lucky if the house increased in value much at all.

2) continue to throw away $800 a month on rent but in exchange still have that $150k left over to invest in ways that will possibly have better returns. In other words, the $9600 a year I'm spending on rent would just be the interest cost of loaning myself $150k. I could then A) buy property somewhere else where it will appreciate more rapidly, or similarly, buy fixer uppers (which would at least be fun for me). Obviously with my limited funds and my poor credit, I'd need to start with cheap properties. I'd actually probably want to find someway to finance at least part of the properties just so that I start building my credit score back up. I wonder if they'll loan to me if I'm paying like 90% down? You'd think they would, huh?

3) continue to rent and since i'm not convinced I want to do design work for the rest of my life, use my capital to start a business (restaurant? retail? service?) or go to school and change careers so that my days will be more interesting and then in a few years my credit and income situations will be such that I can by a house for myself like normal people do (i.e. 20% down, 15 or 30 year loan)


I'm 35 with a wife and two kids. What would you guys do in my situation.

 

Tifosi69....Who the **** am I? There are MANY here that will vouch for my own integrity and intellegence. You, on the other hand, I think you are a PUNK! Please try another forum!

 

Damn, what a ***** fest. Cal houses are expensive. Here in TX I could get a VERY nice house for $200k in a good area. DFW has great job ops and if you moved here, I would have one more 360 to stare at while I'm cruising in my Geo.

Nice car, the name is a little braggy but hey if you can back it up, go for it. I say good luck and at least you're looking for advice and not just blowing your money.

P.S. to the guy with the kids and the "What would you do..." question, I would buy and resales cars instead of houses. You can have more to sell with the same amount of money.

 

No SIR, you are the PUNK !! I don't feel the need to question whether or not someone actually owns the car he says he does !! How do we know for sure you own the car you say you do, or I really own mine, or how do we really know, apart from the friends we individually have on the board, that ANYONE here is telling the truth? Who cares, there are a lot of great gearheads and car guys here and I have learned a lot about the marque, about my car in particular, and learned some things that are helping me make my purchasing decision for my 2nd Ferrari. Want to come to my house and see I REALLY HAVE THE CAR?

If you cannot see the absurdity in asking someone to PROVE to you that he really got a 360 at 20 years old and it wasn't given to him, then I have wasted my time typing this. But I think others do see what I'm saying.

BTW, post count is HARDLY some benchmark or integrity or ferrari knowledge, and certainly not of intelligence.

 

Dont care if you earned it, stole it or just got it from family etc. just appreciate the fcar - however - looking at the previous posts from 360@20 makes me doubt most thats been said, look for yourself and decide.

 

Buy a house only if you can afford making the mortgage payments each month. If you can't .... then kill the idea.

Since you are only 20, are you going to be living in the house yourself? If not, then you have to think that there is no benefit of having a mortgage because if it isn;t your place of primary residence, then you can not deduct the mortgage interest off your taxes.

I do admire your thinking that you should use your money to make more money. Lots of people your age do not have that mentality and just blow it all away on cars and drugs. Real estate investing is definitely a nice way to make money, but only do it if you can part with a big chunk of money without crying about it.

 

Hey 360@20

I think it's great that you have a Ferrari at a young age. What is better, is that you are asking about a home. I have to agree with what your uncle told you. However here is how you can make the best of it. A friend of mine bought a triplex in Hollywood. He spent time fixxing it up. Well now he lives in one of the units and rents the other two out. With the rent he collects, all he has to come up with for the mortgage is a something like $100. He also gets to deduct the interest off of his tax returns, that his tenants pay. Not to mention he got this place a few years back and since the market in SoCali has gone nuts, so he has made more money in equity, and it only cost him $100 a month. Pretty good huh. Anyway if I were in your shoes looking to get rid of $100g's, I would look into getting a multi-unit income property.

 

Sell the 360, have a spell checker, a typing lesson lol and invest in small real estate first then move up. Assuming this is all true that you are saying, but hey you will be here all day right?

 

( flame suit on its hot in this thread!!! i got approved for a loan over $200k. bear in mind i am in in no where ville georgia and you can buy a mansion here with credit and cash like that. i am single, decent job, bunch of college ect. instead of a wonderhouse i looked until i found a place that 1) has assumeable equity 2) was close to work 3) needed some minor work to increase even more in value. i bought a cheap house with a huge garage/shop that is worth way more than i have in it. if i get laid off, get a better job ect i can 1) rent the place out and keep it and the $$$ it has in it, 2) i can take the equity in the form of a note or credit line (did that) and use it for a rainy day ( not to buy more cars!!!) you have no idea how hard it is for me not too!!!
360@20 , perhaps you can buy a duplex or some condoes, and run them as a rental property, maybe even hire 1 person to do the dirty deeds ( manager) ect. if you have a mind for business as you stated then this should not be too hard to achieve. i am a "nobody" aircraft mechanic. i am now actively in the market for a ferrari ( carb car dammit). its not my place to judge you, whether you do or dont have this and that, i dont care. in my opionion there is an opportunity for you to advance yourself by getting into realestate as a landlord/property owner. there are folks here way better at that advice than myself. just smile when you drive the 360 and think of me when i am up at 3am working on GULFSTREAMS!!! BEST OF LUCK TO YOU.

 

Buy just enough house that you can live comfortably. My first house was a 900 sq. ft. 1/2 duplex. I sold it 3 months ago and moved into a 4600 sq. ft house (I'm married now and we are going to have kids at some point). You don't want a big house now. You will need the extra cash to put into business ventures that make money for you. A house will not provide you with income unless it's a rental unit. If you buy a house and it's a good investment, all it means is that it's a good place to park money. It won't make you income as you have to sell it to realize the gains.

When you are deciding on a house, decide first how much you want to pay each month, then figure out how much down payment you need for the house you want. If the down payment makes you queasy then that's too much house.

Really, go as small as possible and preserve all the cash you can for business ventures.

 

Having a 360 at an early age must feel great! I'm also young myself but my plan is different than yours. With all that money you have, why not invest and wait a decade and have a few fcars? And also a nice home to go with it. Trust me, look into real estate or invest in something else. Buy a small comfortable home for now. Invest the rest.

You can have "enzo@25" instead of 360@20 if you play your cards right.

I grow houses first before I grow cars. And who knows?... By then I will have Michael Schumacher washing my Enzo!

Good luck in whatever you decide to do.

John