Hi there! I have read over what posts I could find on this topic and it seems like the consensus (without getting into specifics) is usually to pay of debt. My wife and I are around 45 grand in the hole for her education. 13.5 of which is at 5.25-6.55 percent interest, the rest is at 4 or lower. We are currently saving about 3500 a month while making 550 dollar payments (what Fedloan calls the aggressive payment play, but what I see as the bare minimum) towards our student loans every month. We have the 3 month emergency fund set, and are making the requisite 401k contributions. We live in San Diego, and have determined it is not feasible nor responsible for us to stay here due to the insanely high cost of real estate so we are looking to move to Sacramento where we can get something that will work for us for between 350-420. Looks like the housing prices there are increasing by at least 6 percent a year, with no end in sight due to the fact that LA, the Bay Area, and San Diego are all priced out at this point and Sacramento is booming (https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Sacramento-California/market-trends/). One way or another, we are going to stay super frugal until we buy a house and pay off her debt, but I cant figure out which to tackle first. It seems to me that since 1) rents are going up more quickly than incomes (i.e. our buying power/saving power goes down every day we continue to rent) 2) the sacramento housing market is increasing at a rate above our current student loan interest rates and 3) a down payment is a leveraged investment whereas paying off student loans is not, it seems to make sense to save enough for a downpayment (plus move in costs plus repairs etc...) first and tackle the student loans once we get a house. I am a rookie here so please go easy on me if I am missing things that are blatantly obvious to the more financially literate. Thank you for taking the time to read, hope you all enjoy your day.
Submitted June 07, 2018 at 02:27PM by asisson27 https://ift.tt/2kTl8J7
