All Forum Posts by: Carlo Rodriguez

@Joe Villeneuve i'm having a hard time following you.  are you saying i  am  "handing money over" when i decide to pay off my debt?  is that because I'm spending not USING my money?

If i make a bad move and lose my money, i lose all my money and am still in debt.  If I pay off my debt and make a bad move and lose all my money, I just lost all my money but atleast i got out of debt first..

Thats just how i register it in my brain. But you mentioned most REI think like homeowners. what do you mean? Maybe i'm just not thinking about this the right way.

hi @Nichole Stohler thanks for your reply.  you asked what type of deals im looking for?

Honestly, I dont even know.  I am brand new to this and just know i want to and should be investing in real-estate.  I still learning the ins and outs.  it seems like a lot of people invest in different states.  I live in the greateer seattle area, everything is really expensive.

@Peter Hollyfield thanks for you post.  makes sense.

@Joe Villeneuve  interesting.  i never thought about it this way.  im worried about risk though.  and i dont want to make a bad investment AND be in debt.  so i figured I'll just spend my money paying off the debt.  At the end, its like a pay day when the debt is all gone.

@Steve K. thank for you reply. great advice

to answer your questions:

• On the one hand, you seem to feel "wealthy"; you have a ton of equity in your house, (that's off limits?) I dont know if i feel wealthy lol.  maybe lucky that the house' value went up quite a bit.  Its not offlimits.  I'm just not sure if tapping in to it for investing purposes is a good idea
• You appear to be spending beyond your means, to the tune of $80k over a few years. Two cars financed (1 remaining auto loan), some medical bills....student loans, and poor tax planning(?) on the family business that led to $10k tax bill owed with penalties and interest to the IRS? yes over the last 10 years we were pretty bad with the spending.  we have it under control now.  we are just paying it off at a faster rate.
• You've stopped saving into your 401k. (did you give up employer matching funds? if your employer matched 100% of what you deposit, didn't you just forgo 108% return (i.e. mutual funds to make 8% and doubling your deposits with match?)  My employer matches .25 up to 6%.   i temporarily am only doing 2% into my 401K

I think we can get a HELOC but have to look at my credit. Theres been a few negative reports that bumped my score down. Either way, I will be paying this debt off within 12-15 month.

I hear you man.  thanks.

Now the challenge is to talk my wife into selling her car lol

my car is paid off in a few months.

@Steve Vaughan

Wow so you definitely know how i feel!  thanks for the advice.

to answer your question

20K is from a Car 

10K is from Taxes (my wife's business)

The rest is student loans credit cards at HIGH interest.

So like i said, all the minimums add up to 1400 per month.  We are throwing about 2700 to 3K a month at this.

My thoughts are, "wow, when I'm out of debt, i can save for a down payment on a home real fast instead of taking equity from my home" 

I love your advice.  thanks

Wow thank @Nicholas Covington  

Both of your points are solid.

One reason why I want to start now is because I always think opportunities will pass me by. I dont want to "miss out". But I know that is not true- its just the feeling i get. I definitely make good income and can afford grinding down this debt for another 12 month. And you are right, I will position myself way better if my DTI was lower.

I'm terrible at searching forums but I will look in to the "REI while in debt" types of post.

I should take advantage of the next year and learn as much as i can before i dive in.  Right now I'm reading the ABCs of Investing.  Trying to figure out what i want to read next.

Thanks man!

Carlo 

Hi,

So I'm on the fence on this one.  I'm leaning more towards paying my debt off first to.

A few years ago (2015) my wife and decided that the monthly credit card/tax/medical/students loan bills were getting out of control.  We were forking out roughly 2000 a month on about 80K worth of debt.  So we decided to go nuts and pay this **** off fast.  I stopped my 401K investment per month and put everything towards bills.

Im currently paying almost 3K per month (my minimums add up to 1,400)

Today, we have only (only? lol) 40K left.  I'm on track to pay this off by mid 2018.

As a hopeful investor in real estate, I keep saying " I plan to buy my first rental next year when I'm out of debt".  

My question is why should I wait?

I currently have a ton of equity in my home that i can leverage to get a rental property.  I'm thinking, i can use this extra income per month to pay of my credit card bills faster!

Anyway, anyone else started investing in real estate while in debt?

Any advice?  Is pulling equity out to buy an investment property a bad decision?

Please let me know your thoughts.

Carlo

Thanks for this.  simple....also after reading these two articles it makes even more sense:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/wp-content...

https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2012/12/1...