Quick break down of my situation (25 years old):
- $75,000 income this year. I average approximately $3692/mo after taxes, per month
- No debt
- State employment/retirement. I get yearly raises (steps) for the next few years, plus contractual increases on the base (at some point, the last one was %6 percent but this is a few years away)
- $13,000 of this years pay was from overtime. Overtime is not always guaranteed.
- ~$20,000 cash savings + 6 month emergency fund
- Live with parents - they are cool with this and don't charge me for rent
- Live with parents means I'm an hour away from work. With all of the overtime I've been working, I've spent about $170 on gas the past few months. This is lower when I don't take overtime, but not significantly.
- Bills - Car insurance $120/mo, $30 between netflix/hulu/utube
My goal in short is to build a house. It won't be anything "crazy" but I do plan to have kids at some point. That said, I'm not married right now. I have a girlfriend of a couple years and at some point I think we'll get married. Right now she makes about 30k, just out of college, and is beginning training that should bump her significantly through a promotion in the next few months to around 50k. She does have around 35k in student loan debt.
Here's the thing, I've browsed reality websites for the past year and hardly any houses I've seen have really caught my attention/not enough land/bad location/too expensive. I basically "want" a house the way I "want" the house. I've seen some nice deals on land, and I'm more and more tempted to buy land NOW. So the question is do I
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Buy land now and hold onto it. Pay off as much as I can (if not all) in the next 3-4 years. Save up for a down payment on a house then build.
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Save money for the next 3-4 years. Buy land in cash. Save up money for a down payment on a house.
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(B) Save for the next 3-4 years. (Assuming married by this point?).Buy a "decent" but cheap starter home together, paying for as much as I can with cash. Save for additional time and buy land/build.
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Save for the next few years. Move out to apartment. Save for additional time, buy land/build house with almost all cash.
I guess the biggest variable is the marriage part, but she's hinted at it, I want it, I assume it'll happen. My reason for buying the land now, and working to pay it off is that I feel I'll be able to get more of the house I want, not having to also worry about having a land payment as well. I don't exactly know where I'll buy, but I'll tell you I won't have more than a 35 minute commute when I do.
Submitted September 23, 2017 at 03:25AM by QUWW http://ift.tt/2xqUjBG
