No credit card debt and 10% down. I do have student loans and we bought a car about two months after we bought the house. I did not like seeing all that money leave in those few months.
I did but I had a significant amount of money in stocks that I sold for part of the down payment. My great aunt started putting money in stock for me when I was born so I really lucked out. Otherwise, I probably would have only had 5-7% to put down or I would have bought a smaller house.
Post by liverandonions on Aug 27, 2013 9:42:18 GMT -5
We had no CC debt and 20% down. We still had a cushion in the bank too, and have built it back up pretty nicely. None of this is because of me. My husband is the money guy. If I was in charge we'd be living in an apartment and eating Ramen.
I bought our house by myself a few months before we were married. I have never had a credit card (so no CC debt), and I owned my car outright. I did (and still do) have student loan debt at 2.48%. I put 10% down and had another $10,000+ to spend on buying stuff for the house. It was new construction, so we needed landscaping, fence, curtains, etc... We need all the labor and just bought materials.
MH had a small amount of CC debt $3,000ish when we got married and student loans. I factored those in when planning the house budget and paid off the CCs ASAP and haven't used CCs since. (This was part of the deal for getting married.)
share.memebox.com/x/uKhKaZmemebox referal code for 20% off! DD1 "J" born 3/2003 DD2 "G" born 4/2011 DS is here! "H" born 2/2014 m/c#3 1-13-13 @ 9 weeks m/c#2 11-11-12 @ 5w2d I am an extended breastfeeding, cloth diapering, baby wearing, pro marriage equality, birth control lovin', Catholic mama.
First time we bought w 0% down, 100% financing. Ah, 2005, you got us good with the frenzied housing market. This time, we bought a cheap fixer-upper, cash, and are slowing, very slowly, putting money into it. Extremely minimal cc debt. Like, we need to just pay it and be done with it. Its a nuisance to have to remember to pay every month.
We had no CC debt and more than 1 year emergency fund when we bought. We love in HCOL, so no one here has a 20% DP, but we put 6% down and that was still tens of thousands of dollars. We paid off all our debt shortly after buying (H's student loans and car loan).
I don't think having 20% is necessary in HCOL, but you should have low debt and at least a 6 month efund.
Right there with you. We bought in 06 and were very stupid.
We bought in '07. It was fine until we had a baby, then there were a few *really* tight years, but we made it through without any major disasters.
We're working on paying off CC debt now so that next year when we put our townhouse on the market, we'll be in a much better position.
However, I will have student loan debt until the day I die.
Yep. We have been lucky and nothing has happened that we couldn't handle. We have had major medical issues that have put us further behind financially though, but I think they are behind us. As much as people bash MM, I have hung out there and did learn a few things Everything we have been doing is positioning ourselves to be in a much better place when we try to sell our house and get a bigger one.
For our first and second homes, we put down 15% (we had 0 CC debt) and paid for the remaining 5% with a home equity line. I don't know if you can even do that anymore, post-bubble. We bought much cheaper than we could afford, to give ourselves a cushion. For our third home, now we have a lot more income, we put down the full 20%.
We did but only because we spent a few years as expats living basically on my H's company's dime. We were really fortunate to be able to save the majority of his paycheck. If we hadnt had that opportunity it would have been years before we could afford the house we bought.
Post by dragonfly08 on Aug 27, 2013 9:47:48 GMT -5
On the first three houses DH bought (all before we were married) he had zero CC debt and put down at least 20%.
On the two houses we've bought together, both times we kept the prior home as an investment property rather than sell it, so we had only about 15% to put down. Still no CC debt, though.
I do not understand the words that are coming out of your mouth.
We had zero CC debt, only a car payment (mine) and did not put 20% down. We probably could have but it'd have drained both of our savings and we didn't want to do that.
Ok, H didn't want to do that. I wanted to buy ALL THE THINGS (but, he was right).
Right there with you. We bought in 06 and were very stupid.
Haha we bought in 07 and are in the same boat. Luckily our house is a real basic starter home, and is close to being today at what we paid for it than, but we were upside down within a year b/c of the market collapse. We also had a first time homeowner's loan, nothing down and seller's paid closing costs. So stupid to not wait a few more years to save and pay off some of our dumb "party" after college with real jobs but using credit cards.
lol, whatever. No debt and a 20% downpayment was never going to happen for us, ever. We did a first time homebuyer's program with a second, interest-free, deferred mortgage to cover the downpayment, and the sellers paid closing costs. Hello, 2006! Except it was 2013. I still feel like we got a good deal on the purchase price, bought at the right time, and we can stay here as long as we need to. It's also brand new, so a lot of things are still under warranty, and repairs should be minimal for awhile. That was a factor.
Similar situation here. We paid 3% down and the closing costs and that was still a bunch of money. 20% down plus closing would have been $90,000. Although both H and I make good money that was Not. Gonna. Happen. (At least not anytime soon.)
Post by leancuisine on Aug 27, 2013 9:51:25 GMT -5
We didn't have any CC debt and we also did not have to put down anything (VA loan). We had probably about 10 months of living expenses saved, but we used a chunk of that for moving expenses, new carpet, paint, and other random things that come when buying a new house.
The only debt we have is student loans, and that is pretty manageable.
For our first and second homes, we put down 15% (we had 0 CC debt) and paid for the remaining 5% with a home equity line. I don't know if you can even do that anymore, post-bubble. We bought much cheaper than we could afford, to give ourselves a cushion. For our third home, now we have a lot more income, we put down the full 20%.
Yup, you can. We are closing next month and putting down 10% with the remaining 10% as a HELOC. You have to have very good credit, though (720+, I believe).
VA Loan. Zero down, no closing. Had debt. We had 20% down but used it to furnish the house. Our mortgage is $835/mo in Southern California so 20% down wasn't very much.
Post by mrsukyankee on Aug 27, 2013 9:54:21 GMT -5
My DH already owned a flat and so when we sold it, between the sale & our savings, we ended up with 25% down, a bunch leftover (which we needed to refurb the hosue) and had 0 cc debt. We gave up on a lot of stuff to get to that point for about five years, so it was a great thing. It was worth it as I don't currently have a job but we can still live on my DH's salary though we can't travel and we have to be careful with our money (I probably won't go clothes shopping for the next year unless I absolutely need something).
Post by katiescarlett on Aug 27, 2013 9:54:48 GMT -5
Not us. We don't carry CC debt but we have student loans. Not 20% down though-by the time we saved it the kids would be grown enough to not need as much house.
Post by sunshineluv on Aug 27, 2013 9:55:25 GMT -5
No, we didn't have cc debt, but we had SL's and two car payments. We put down 3.5% for an FHA loan. (And got the $8K tax rebate, which helped with the new roof and other home improvements).
Here here! We also always buy a house based on only one income, not two. That way we know, if God forbid one of us lost our jobs, we would be okay financially.
We did this too, which is not an easy feat in northern Jersey. Needless to say, the house is 1000 square feet with no basement, garage, or attic to speak of.
Post by donthasslethehoff on Aug 27, 2013 10:00:40 GMT -5
That's laughable in our area, unless you have a really high paying job, no student loans, and live in your parent's basement or a basement apartment until you're into your 30s. I don't think I know a single person around here that bought their house in their 20s with 20% down, unless they were gifted a large sum of money from their parents (which is also incredibly common in this area).