I need advice

[Hardwareman]

WOW!

I can't believe how inexpensive homes are over there.

That same house over here in the OC area would easily go for $400,000. I wonder what employment is like out there.

It's seeing things like this that make me want to leave California.




Allen

 

[Roadkill]

Here is my 2 cents take it or leave it.

You have already said if you get rid of the 250 the payment and insurance alone will almost pay for the house. Sell the truck. Get rid of the B2 and the trailer and ATV. You can then afford to buy in cash an Explorer or Ranger and have a good down payment for the house.

You have to figure out if "stuff" (aka crap) is more important than YOUR family. I've been through the having crap is more important phase. It almost destroyed my marriage and family. We live on one income, mine. So far everything we have is paid for in full, I have gotten rid of things that I thought were special to me. Believe me there is nothing more special to me than my wife and boys.

You have to understand that you will have your fiance's income for a while but in this day you have to be prepared to live on 1 income in case something happens. Say your lovely future bride gets pregnant next year and goes on mat leave? Can you afford all the 'crap', house, and additional expenses of a little one? What if one of you gets in an accident and is off for 6 months or more? Can you live?

Forget all the commercials and garbage out these days about all the crap you HAVE to have to be happy. It is all a load of BS. To be happy you need your family, a house, and be able to afford the basics of life. If that means selling all the stuff you have now to buy an older car, or fix the B2 properly for transportation then so be it.

I'll step down from the pulpit now or else I could go on for some time.

 

[poconojoe]

Take your time and find a nice small "starter" home. Prices are rapidly falling as we speak. Don't think (like I did) that you will be living in that first home the rest of your life. You will probably be "upgrading" later on to a larger home with more property. Or maybe buy your first "starter" home with a good amount of property around it so you can expand house and garage later when you have more money.

 

[JFA_Spyderman]

Yo,
Have you considered looking for a mortgage company that does manual underwriting? Thats when they don't look at your credit at all, but look at you as a person (time with employer, salary consistency, etc...).

Another thought would be to build a shop on a spot with just a house. Then you could find the house for cheaper and then build a shop to fit your needs.

 

[Pt_Ranger_V8]

lotsa good advice here.

wish I would've had some of it when I was buying the first time around.

Now I'm thinking about selling the wheeler, and just hunting for a while to get my outdoors fix. :wall:

 

[BigClemsonFan]

Here is my 2 cents take it or leave it.

You have already said if you get rid of the 250 the payment and insurance alone will almost pay for the house. Sell the truck. Get rid of the B2 and the trailer and ATV. You can then afford to buy in cash an Explorer or Ranger and have a good down payment for the house.

You have to figure out if "stuff" (aka crap) is more important than YOUR family. I've been through the having crap is more important phase. It almost destroyed my marriage and family. We live on one income, mine. So far everything we have is paid for in full, I have gotten rid of things that I thought were special to me. Believe me there is nothing more special to me than my wife and boys.

You have to understand that you will have your fiance's income for a while but in this day you have to be prepared to live on 1 income in case something happens. Say your lovely future bride gets pregnant next year and goes on mat leave? Can you afford all the 'crap', house, and additional expenses of a little one? What if one of you gets in an accident and is off for 6 months or more? Can you live?

Forget all the commercials and garbage out these days about all the crap you HAVE to have to be happy. It is all a load of BS. To be happy you need your family, a house, and be able to afford the basics of life. If that means selling all the stuff you have now to buy an older car, or fix the B2 properly for transportation then so be it.

I'll step down from the pulpit now or else I could go on for some time.

This is the only person here, that has given meaningful advice. If having an truck is so important to you, why don't you live in that? Not that comfortable, huh?

I'll never understand why people always want the nicest rides, yet are satisfied living in a mediocre home, or worse. We were in a similar situation when we bought our home. I had three trucks and she had a car that was less than two years old. We struggled to find a decent home while trying to stay well below what we qualified for. So we damn near maxed out our loan capacity to buy our house. I only have one truck left, and that's to haul garbage, pellets, other things to maintain a home. I bought a trailer to make up for not having a pickup. No insurance needed on a trailer, so it was a no brainer. We have another car now, but it was bought used. We don't need fancy shit here. But we do want a nice comfortable home.

I'd say get rid of that crap that you think you need, and keep what you really need. Doesn't matter if you buy a new house or old, you'll be putting money into for upkeep, decorating, etc. You need as much financial cushion as possible.

 

[Will]

I am contemplating a little 30mpg/town car. Why in the hell you own that truck on your income is beyond me. I wondered that when you bought it. At your income level (since you decided to share it with us) I was driving a $1,200 car I bought for cash and renting. Because at that level, you never know if you will suddenly need to move. I would ditch both the car and the B2 and get a Suburu wagon with awd that was 10-15 years old. Even now as an old and fairly well-off guy, I drive a 20-year old truck and paid $130,000 for my first house 10 years ago.

When our income was in the $50k-60k range we were approved for $250,000. I was studying on that and decided that everyone wants to hog your credit. Everyone is in the banking business--or should I call it the loan-shark business. Your credit card company, auto salesman and home lender are all trying to hog all of your credit and get your intrest payments. That's the profit for everyone. Hog up your credit. No suprise that the bottom is falling out of the economy, is it? I'll tell you what, right now, ten years later, our income has tripled and we live in this shit house with all of our contemporaries in those huge $250,000 dwellings and we are all feeding 3-4 kids. We have a lot of income that we put toward college for the younguns and our 401ks and we have enough money to do things without getting too stressed out. That wouldn't be the case if we decided to live in the exclusive communities that my wife's friends live in and drive the cars they drive. I was born a coal miner's daughter and it has worked out very well for us because I know what it's like to be poor.

I would not buy a house. I would sell all the toys you can't afford and I would get one of you a secondary degree. Getting married is a big thing. I wouldn't do it, so that's my advice. But once you do, you have kids coming whether you know it or not. When I got married I was half way to a military retirement and my wife held an engineering degree. We did not think about kids. Suddenly, she woke up and wanted a puppy. And I got her one and then she wanted this and that and the next thing I knew--it was really that biological clock calling her-tick-tock-tick-tock.

Now, I have 4 kids (I guess I couldn't find the snooze button) and my grocery bill is $800/month. That's going to eat up a lot of your salary. Kids will throw a piano on your brake pedal. That's why I always advise people to live on a shanty-boat and tend bar at a beach bar. If you must get married, you WILL have kids. And you need a lot of money to even think about that. So get someone a secondary degree.

Then you can think about a house.

 

[Jspafford]

I bought the F-250 when it was 3 years old. I had a 2001 Ranger I traded in on it. The B2 is reliable, until it suddenly breaks down. I would drive it across state, but would be scared to drive it any farther (even though it would do fine I am sure).

I owe nothing on the B2, it would do me no good to sell it. The ATV is also paid for and old, I would get nothing out of it. The trailer I have not even bought yet. All I have now I am willing to part with is the F-250.

 

[gbadgley]

Roadkill makes some VERY valid points, Your Marriage will be full of compromise between what you want and what is best for your family.
You said that YOU could not believe how much you could borrow for a new home. That should be a HUGE red flag to you, If you are uncomfortable about it don't get into it. Think about a few years down the road, your wife is not working because of children, extra mouths to feed. That is the very reason that the forclosure rate is as high as it is, people's situations change and they can not handle it. Greg