Quote:
Originally Posted by afterburn 549
I guess it does not matter what he started with...9 years he will be 65 and renting/ hoping the stocks went up ?
Is that every ones take ?
Or loose in the stock game but buy in the house game now ..?
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If I were in your friend's situation, I'd leave the money in the 401K and hope it climbs back up in value... and rent and not worry about building equity right now.
He's thinking about that magic number of 65 as the earliest age he can think about SS and retirement, right?
If he's thinking about retiring at 65, he may need to adjust that and think about working 5-10 more years after that if he's able.
This thing has caused a lot of people to rethink when they'll be able to afford to retire.
There's no shame in renting. If our situation morphed into something that caused us to have to rent, I wouldn't stress about it.
Good grief, think about how much one pays out beyond the loan amount after 30 years anyway... is the house usually worth that much when you finish paying? Probably not. That's why so many people try to pay it off early.
I have a 57-yr. old buddy who got divorced 2 years ago (no children)... he and his wife split amicably, but he stayed in the house. He had to pay her $35K based on what the house was appraised at minus what they had left to pay. He refinanced to cover that and rolled it all into a 30-yr. loan to keep the payments as low as possible.
He has been trying to buy a rental home each year for the last 3 years, and he sets those up on 30-yr. loans, too.
If it all works out, he may be sitting pretty sweet, but he told me he's not worried if he dies before all the loans are paid off, because he won't be leaving a big debt to any heirs or anything.
He's just taking his best shot at it all working out, hoping he's setting himself up a decent retirement plan "to supplement his SS check" when he decides he can afford to retire.
Tell your friend not to rush into buying anything... unless there's some kind of rent-to-own thing he can work to his advantage. I don't know how those work, but I have heard they're out there.