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Message: [QUOTE="jleves, post: 2701386, member: 757"] I'm certainly not a financial adviser and I have no idea about the conditions in CT, but I'm really surprised that your house has only appreciated 5% in 15 years. I know there was the bubble burst in that time but I thought most places had increased significantly since the bottom. I was fortunate that I got my home in 2010 and it's appreciated 80% since then. Even if I go back to the price it sold at in 2006 before the bubble, it's still up 30% since then. Add in the tax benefits of interest and property tax (which may be more limited in 2018) and the fact that when you sell, most or all of the profit isn't taxed and I can't see a reason not to buy a house if you can afford it. My advice for a 25 year old person with the means to buy a house: 1) Get rid of all debt - particularly credit card debt. There's no reason to pay double digit interest on money you don't have. Low interest car or student loan debt is more tolerable but you still want to get rid of it as fast a possible. Pay off the higher interest debt first while maintaining the lower interest debt. Eat raman, get rid of as much of luxury things you can live without, put on a sweatshirt and turn down the heat and pay off as much debt as you can. You have your 40s and beyond to be comfortable. 2) As to the 50/30/20 rule, there's no reason to spend 30% on things you want at that age - lower it. Your late 20s early 30s will still be amazing without spending 30%. 3) Don't get married or have kids until you can afford it. You're going to live longer than you parents and way longer than your grandparents. 40 plus years with a spouse is more than enough - wait until you're 35 or so. Your kids will be out of the house when your 60-65 - that's good enough. 4) Go ahead and live with someone who can do 1) and 2) above until you're ready to have kids and can afford it. 5) If you can do 1) and 2) go ahead and buy a house as soon as you can. Buy the worst house you can afford and can fix up in the best neighborhood you can find. If you are handy, you can create at ton of equity/worth in a fixer - particularly if you don't have kids to deal with. Know your limits. It's stupid expensive to find contractors for things you can't handle. 6) Sell your first house in 2 to 5 years depending on market conditions. If you can get 250k in profit, it's not taxable. That profit is in your pocket tax free. 7) Take the profit and equity and buy the next worst house you can fix in the best neighborhood you can find. You have 5 years this time because you can only take the free tax from profit once every 5 years. 8) Rinse repeat buy, fix, sell every 5 years until you have enough money to buy the house you want to spend the rest of your life in. You can turn about 5 houses over between 25 and 47 or so. If you get married in that time frame, you take 500k in profit without taxes. If you do it right, by your late 40s, you can buy a great house with no mortgage. 9) Make sure you never get emotionally attached to a house so that you can't do the 5 year turn over. It's all a means to an end. Good luck! [/QUOTE]

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