College is EXPENSIVE now, so what if you could find a simple and easy way to pay for your student debt? The answer??? ROOMMATES! Hear Lili’s story today. It’s amazing! If you start your plan early, you can affordably get your first home to help fund your future, and your friends (or their parents) will pay you to do it. Become a landlord early and never pay to one for your entire life. Hear all the hacks in this episode.
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Amazing 19-Year-Old That Bought Her First Home!
How A 19-year-old Planned And Bought Her First Home And Now Rents To Her College Roommates
If you’ve been putting off trying to buy your first home, this episode is not going to make you feel any better. Lili is nineteen and bought her first house. It’s time for all of us to live in regret. Let’s do it.
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Here I am thinking that I should be telling everybody how to buy a home. I’m scrolling through TikTok, and I see a nineteen-year-old telling everybody how to buy a home. We interviewed Courtland in the past. He bought his own house, but he did it to put a motorcycle in it and have awesome parties. He seriously parked his motorcycle in the living room. Lilith had a point, and I am so impressed with her that I messaged her on TikTok, and here we are. Lilith, tell us your story.
My name is Lilith or Lili. When I bought my house, I was nineteen. It’s been a plan forever where I’ve always been like, “I need to save all my money. There’s something that I’m going to do. I’m not sure, but I want to be smart about it.” I graduated high school in 2020 and then went to college.
Did you have remote graduation? I’m going to interrupt you a million times.
I did. I had moved towns during COVID because we were going to wait until after I graduated. We were like, “Let’s move some stuff. Let’s move a little bit of this.” In April, all of our stuff was in our new house. We were like, “Okay.” I had to message the school. I ended up graduating in my boyfriend’s driveway. Our principal drove around to everybody’s house and hand-delivered our diplomas. I graduated in a class of 500. It was a lot better than regular graduation. It was fun. It was the first COVID summer, so people were a little less scared and nervous. Everyone was over and having a good time. It was fun.
You said that you’ve been thinking about this forever. You bought it at nineteen. Tell us when you started thinking about this.
We closed in January of 2020. That was right before the second semester of my sophomore year because I knew I wanted to live off campus in my junior year. After looking into a lot of different loan programs and what I had to do, it made a lot of sense to find a home that I could put a small percent down on and be able to live there and also rent it out because, in college, everybody has roommates when they move off campus. Everybody needs to live with other people.
Rent prices are insane around campus because it’s a lot of people who own 40, 50, or 60 properties and are renting out bedrooms and houses for thousands of dollars a month. The apartments that are right near campus are $2,000 a month for one bedroom that you have to share with somebody. I was like, “I don’t want to do that.” I started to think about it. I was like, “It’s less expensive to buy a house.”
On your TikTok, you talk about the fact. You mentioned side hustling during high school, which is trying to get TikTok to eat spinach, liver, and onions. What was your intention when you were side hustling in high school? It sounds like this housing idea was formatted during that freshman year.
It formatted around during there, but through high school, my thought was that I wanted money to do my own things. I never wanted to be stressed about it. I’m an only child. My parents were divorced when I was young. I was on my own for a lot of things. Not that my parents couldn’t support me, but it was more like I saved my money so that I could buy a car. Once I had my car, I was like, “I don’t want to make my parents pay for my gas. I need some money for gas. I need some money to hang out with my friends.”
I never wanted to be stressed and worried about that, especially because I know I want to be a teacher. That’s my end goal in life. I’m going to school for teaching. I knew my salary wasn’t going to be the biggest in the world, so I’ve always had that idea of, “When can I save money? When I can be making money for something that doesn’t take too much of my time and something that I could do quickly and spend a couple of hours a week on that would make me some extra money?” That was my intention the whole time. I’m making sure.
Here’s the deal. I have a few different social media posts that I’m putting out there. I’m a middle-class kid from Orange County, not to mention the fact that I’m a White man living in Southern California, growing up in the ’80s, which was awesome for the privilege but terrible for wardrobe and my hairdos. It was awful.
I understand that I’m privileged, so a lot of my friends will potentially maybe their parents are going to help them out at some point in their life. I have talked on social media about talking to your parents about helping you out with down payments and things like that. What’s interesting is I get so many typewriter trolls and haters like, “It must be nice for you. It must be easy just asking your parents.”
What I heard from you is something that I need to intake and make sure that I share with other people. You realized you were going to go into a low-paying job. You were an only child of a divorced family and wanted to go ahead and start providing early. To the people who think that I’m not in touch with them, here’s Lili.
The next step is if you’re a person who isn’t going to be able to borrow a down payment from anybody, here’s what’s awesome. You have already learned how to be self-sufficient, independent, and pay for your own way. All we need to do now is figure out how to adjust the budget so that you’re not wasting money on rent. That was enlightening to me. Thank you so much. You knew you needed to save the money, so you became a bit of a hustler because you saw the writing on the wall.
[bctt tweet=”You don’t know your options until you ask.” via=”no”]
I grew up in Connecticut, which is a more well-off state. I grew up in the middle class. I had birthdays, things where people gave me money, Christmas, and holidays. My mom is the sweetest woman in the world. She would always supply my coffee dates if I needed it. I had things like that, but it was important to me to both address that. I did have every so often, like birthday, Christmas, and things like that. I did have family members who were very kind and kind enough to give me some money for things like that. I was also pretty driven since I was young to save my own money, have my own things, and be able to pay for my own stuff, which I always found very important.
It was neat to hear you because I am watching your TikToks. You’re going through the same thing I’m going through, which is random people being very loud and saying things to you. That’s fine. That’s great. People have opinions. It’s wonderful. The message is interesting to me, whether it’s a giant side hustle or a small side hustle. There is a book I tell all my readers about called The Richest Man in Babylon. It’s a super simple and easy read. It’s like a biblical parable.
It’s easy. The concept is 70/10/10. The minute you start making money in life, 70% is what you live on. The other 30%, you divide into three different categories of saving, investing, and in the book, the last 10% is charity. I know people that live 90, 3, 2, 3, 3, 4. Starting in high school can get you there. That mindset probably helped you. You went to college, and you want it. How far was college? Was living off campus imperative or something you want to do?
It was more something that I wanted to do. I haven’t been saying specifically where I go to school and exactly where the property’s located for some privacy reasons, the people who lived there, and things like that.
I mean from your house. As opposed to living at home, do you need to live near campus or just want it?
When I went my freshman year, a lot of people were denied on-campus housing because of COVID. It’s all in Connecticut. Since I was an in-state student, I was offered on-campus housing. I went because I wanted to go to college. The living experience was a little bit tough, to say the least, because it was COVID. It was a lot of like, “Don’t leave your dorm room unless you’re going to get food and then come right back.” Everyone was like, “What?” I did enjoy living on campus.
In my second year, my sophomore year, I also had to live on campus. I then decided I wanted to move off campus. My home where I live with my parents is about an hour. It’s not awful, but it is generally close. It’s easy to get up to the properties over the summer if I’m not going to be there and get up to do things that I need to do and get stuff done.
At that point, you started thinking about it. Where did you get your numbers? Where did you realize, “Maybe I’ll buy someplace by campus?” Let’s get into the nitty-gritty. Tell the folks how you got started, who you called, and what you did. Give us your game plan.
I asked my parents because I wanted to see their thoughts on that. My stepdad ended up co-signing for me so we could qualify for a better property, better interest rate, and things like that. We found a real estate agent in the area, and we were looking around. The second I said that, I was like, “I’m going to buy a house,” my boyfriend is on Zillow every day like, “You should buy this house,” and sending me every Zillow link. We had a lot of input on where, what, how big, how much, whatever.
I eventually contacted my mortgage company, which is First World Mortgage in West Hartford, Connecticut. They have a lot of branches around the state. They were super helpful. They showed me my options as a student like, “What I could qualify for? What does your stepdad need to co-sign? Does he not need to co-sign? Will it help you with your employment history?” It’s those things. They walked me through the process of what makes the most sense for you for the least amount of money or how much you have to put down.
That’s a huge difference, Lili. That’s what I tell people all the time. If you go to the big online guys or someone that doesn’t have your best interests at heart, they’re going to take all your information, give you a number, and then say, “Go to a realtor.” That’s a pre-approval. What you got to do is pre-planning and see all your options. That’s awesome.
My mortgage company, I love them. They’re a local lender. I stopped by every once in a while to talk to people I made friends with. It’s great. They were helpful. They broke down every single option that I had. I learned a lot through the whole process, which made me want to start a TikTok account and share some stuff. I’m not licensed in anything. It’s what my experience was and what I found.
I’ve been doing YouTube for years. There’s some couple that talks about how to live their best life. They tell you how to wrap Christmas presents and hang wallpaper. Their episode on how to buy a house has 100,000 more views than mine. People like to hear from you. What’s cool about that message is you don’t know your options until you ask. I have an analogy where I say that people think that when you buy a house, you go to a bank, they give you $100, you all put $100 in your pocket, you go into Target, and buy something for $100, or if the guy gives you $150, then you get to buy something for $150. That’s not true.
When you go to the lender, they could give you $50 here and $100 in a loan. They could be moving money around this way. Everyone’s pocket is filled with a different option. That’s the cool thing I hope that people get on your TikTok, which is @CTYoungHomeowner. A cool thing that people can understand is that you have the option. You got the options. You figured out with stepdad and without stepdad and decided that the co-signer was the better option for you. Let me ask you this. Was stepdad more interested in it because you did the house hack? That’s what people want to know about. You did the house hack. You’re having other people pay for the mortgage.
He was very interested in it. He was for it from the beginning. He had mentioned it to me in the past like, “Maybe when you go up to school, this might be a good idea.” I was like, “Okay.” I didn’t think about it, and then I started to think about it some more when I was up there with the whole on-campus living situation. I was like, “This is a great idea,” and he was like, “This is cool. Go ahead.”
I was fortunate for my stepdad, especially because he co-signed. My parents were super supportive throughout the whole thing. They were all for it. He helped me do everything out there if I needed help. That’s something too where people are like, “It’s nice to have free labor. You don’t have to pay people to do those things.” My mom helps me mow my lawn. That’s nice that she helps me do those things.
I love that people think the expensive part is mowing the lawn. The labor’s easy.
I bought the lawn mower on Facebook Marketplace. I swear. It’s not.
Without getting into too many details, did you guys do a 20% down payment or an under 20% down payment?
We did under. We were around 5%. I’m pretty sure.
A five percent down payment is incredible. Who lives there? You, and how many other roommates?
We got very lucky with the property. It has two separate living spaces on the same property. We had to go through some things to make sure that was true, that it wasn’t two separate properties and the legal stuff. We have a family living in the big portion.
Were they there before?
No. I found them.
You bought a place that’s a duplex, but it was vacant. You’ve got family living there. Are you doing college life in your single area? Let me guess. You have fourteen roommates.
No, we ended up not needing that many, but that’s the plan. The smaller section is where my boyfriend and I are going to move. We still have some time to figure that stuff out. There are still people looking for off-campus housing. We need to change something up, switch roommates, or who lives where. We still have a lot of time to get that done.
[bctt tweet=”Most people think becoming a millionaire means figuring out a way to get a job to make more money. The opposite is true. The way to become a millionaire is to make the most of the money you have.” via=”no”]
I tell that to people all the time. I have a whole episode where I talked about this. I push buying those properties that are so expensive. I pushed buying near college campuses all the way back in 2011 when the market was tanked. Everybody said I was crazy, and nobody did it. If they did now, the $400,000 condo near Southern California would be worth about $1 million now. It was worth $700,000 in 4 years because the market went back up. The thing I tell people is what the necessity of the living arrangements is. Have you been to a dorm? You don’t have to do much to rent an off-campus. It doesn’t have to be HGTV.
When I was talking to my stepdad because since I go to the school, I have access to all the Facebook groups and all that things, which is another benefit of buying your own near the college campus. You know the market and those things. You can talk to your peers before you post something online. He was like, “I don’t know what should be listed for. Do you think that’s enough?” I was like, “I know people who live with holes in their roofs and eight roommates. People had to hide when the landlord came because there were 12 people living there and 4 people on the lease. They let the pipes freeze and all that stuff. It’s insane.” He was like, “Okay.”
What’s your projection now between the rent that they’re paying and how much rent you have to kick in? Give me the simple math.
In the end, when you add and subtract everything, it’s slightly under $2,000 a month that we profit. I could be a little bit off.
It’s 5% down. How much was the home?
We went $285,000.
It’s about a $250 mortgage. Do you know what you’re charging the family?
The total we get in is about $2,400 a month, with everybody who’s going to be there. We got very lucky with the tenants that we found. The people we ended up renting to in the bigger space had a lot of pets. You can have any deposit that you need like, “We’re willing to work with you guys.” We found people in between to rent for a couple of months who needed a place to stay. It worked out perfect for us, which is lucky that we closed in January 2020 and had 1 or 2 people in there between then and when the next semester would start when people would start renting again.
For fun, I ran a quick calculation. Your mortgage payment, including everything, is probably $1,900 to $2,000. You’re getting $24,000 from those people, which means you’re living in your place for free. That’s unbelievable. That’s incredible.
I hadn’t expected it to go like this. I wasn’t sure. I just knew that I had enough to do it and see what happened. I also have enough to pay rent with my home situation and my parents being divorced. There’s a lot of who pays for school and those things. I don’t have to worry about that. I had my own student loans for a bit. I wasn’t too stressed about it, but I also was like, “If I get to live there for free, I don’t know. This is a crazy situation. What should we do?”
The whole process was new to you. I know you’re helping people on your TikTok. Is there any part of the process that surprised you, wasn’t ready for, or stuff that you felt like, “I’m glad I prepared for this?” Give tips and tricks and hacks for other people.
The biggest thing was when we did the loan, we had a seller credit because the seller wanted to get rid of the house. She was one of the people who had 30, 40, or 50 properties who was done with it and didn’t want it anymore. We got lucky there too. We got to sell her credit, which I didn’t know existed. When we were putting in the offers and stuff, that was an option. I was like, “I guess. Okay.”
That’s not been a thing in this competitive market. That was a thing a few years ago. That’s very fortunate.
It was super fortunate. That was a big thing that I was unaware of. There are a lot of different programs I was pretty unaware of and what benefits you have as a student. For me, buying now, even if I had less money and could put less down or something like that, makes a lot more sense than waiting until I graduate because it’s easy to have roommates now. If my employment history doesn’t qualify me, there are ways like two years of school transcripts can qualify me to have enough work history.
There are a lot of things like that I was completely unaware of. I’m making a TikTok about this soon. If you have a certain loan program where you need to sign the owner occupancy agreement where you need to live there for one year, in college, you live with roommates anyway. It’s not weird to have bought a house and find roommates. It’s not weird to have asked your friends to be like, “I’m buying this house. If you want to live there too, that’s cool. You just have to pay me.” It’s not a weird situation.
Whereas if you’re in your 25 and buy a house, you ask your couple of friends who may also want to have their own house if they want to live with you. If you’re looking for an investment property and can’t live there, you have to put 20% down instead of a lower percent. It was those things that I was like, “I had no clue that this was an option. I didn’t know that this was something that you could do.” It wasn’t until I went through all of this.
It’s crazy because I’ve been telling people this for years. It’s a perfect plan. The problem is you’re 16 or 17 years old and trying to figure out where you’re going to go to college. You’re trying to figure out what your major is, and then someone says, “Great, now buy a house.” I get it. It’s a lot, but if a 25-year-old you could look back at a 19-year-old you, it would say, “You’re never going to have a time in your life where you have built-in roommates that not only they’re paying. If they can’t pay, they have a loan that’s going to pay for it, or their parents are going to pay for it.” It’s fool-proof roommates. People ask me about house hacks all the time. I’m like, “Your greatest house hack was if you’re at a four-year university behind you.”
When I first had brought it up, I would say, “I’m going to buy.” They were like, “Rent?” I was like, “No, I’m buying the house.” They’re like, “Okay.” They then start to ask me, and I’d be like, “You’re going to spend more.” People are like, “My parents aren’t paying my rent. My parents aren’t finding a house for me. I have to do this all on my own.”
I would be like, “What I spent on the house was less than if you had to spend this much a month on a rental. That’s not utilities or any other things that go along with the house.” They were like, “Really?” I’d be like, “Yeah,” and they would be like, “I’m not doing that.” I was like, “Okay.” It was that back and forth that I would see the light bulb go off, and then they’d be like, “That’s too much. I’m not dealing with that.” I was like, “Okay.”
The hard part is explaining it to people. I’ve been saying for years now that when you go to college, you figure out how to do the first and last security deposit and rent. When you moved out of your parents, you figured that out. I’m going to tell you the same thing, except the first and last might be twice as much. I’m not talking $30,000. I’m talking that instead of $5,000, maybe you need $10,000.
If you start thinking about your junior year and high school, it’s the same thing as the first and last security. It’s just a little bit bigger, and you go through the loan process. Here’s the ticker. Everybody in college now is freaking out because the news is telling them that we’re heading into a recession. Everyone’s worried about the job market when they graduate. Wouldn’t it be lovely that the $1,000 a month you spent for four years that it went to something that gave you some security when you graduated?
That’s a big part of it too. Every time I’m stressed about something, it’s like, “Regardless, I’m going to have a place to live. I don’t have to stress about that.”
You’re going to have a place with passive income. Meanwhile, your classmates are going to be asking you if they can mow your lawn because they need money.
That was the thing I had known. Since I was young, I have wanted to be a teacher. That’s always been something that’s been a little bit stressful for me. It’s knowing that maybe I’m not going to be a millionaire. I’m just going to be a teacher, but then I realized it doesn’t have to be one or the other.
It doesn’t, and you will be a millionaire because you have already started. You and I are going to stay in touch because I have a huge affinity for educators. I believe that they should be paid four times what they’re being paid now. It’s very similar to the real estate industry. The real estate industry is getting paid enough, but I believe the bar should be set higher for entry. It’s the same thing for teachers. Raise the bar for entry a little bit and make it a little harder to become one because that’s the only way it will justify the politicians and people to pay them more. People don’t realize that.
This goes a little bit off my stuff and into the investor stuff. Most people think the way to become a millionaire is to figure out a way to get a job to make more money. The opposite is true. There’s a way to become a millionaire or to just be financially free. I don’t care how much money you make. I want you to be happy. The way to do that is not to think, “I have to make more money.” It’s, “I have to make the most of the money I have.”
That’s always how I thought in high school way of, “Maybe I’m not going to go to the mall this weekend. Maybe I’ll buy coffee once a week.” It has been the mindset that I don’t know where, how, or why. It’s the way that I think, but it was, and it worked. I’m very thankful for that.
To everyone out there who’s telling you, because I even saw on your TikTok where people are like, “I want to travel. I want to do stuff,” here’s what’s cool. You’re going to be a teacher. I’m old, and I love my vacations. I loved them in my 20s and 30s. You’re going to have summers off with so much financial security when you’re 25 or 26. Do you know what it’s like to be 25 years old in Italy? At eighteen, you don’t even know what you’re doing yet. I’m like, “Hang on,” and you’re going to be there with money. I do not need to beg to take time off.
I made a TikTok about that. Someone said that, and I was like, “Let me think about the math on that.” I was like, “You make all your money back, and you can be making money while you’re away.”
I tell people all the time that it’s $2,000 a month for the average 2-bedroom apartment. If you want to say, “I have a roommate,” cool, but that’s $12,000 a year from 20 to 25. That’s a lot of vacations. If you’re paying yourself or making cashflow than when you’re 25, that’s going to be an incredible place for you to be able to do some amazing things.
I’m excited about that aspect of freedom.
First of all, I decided to do a whole show on the college thing because I realized it’s time for me to talk about that. I was taking notes while we were talking. I’ve also decided that we’re going to do a check-in with you. We’ll wrap this one up and check back with Lili in a few months or a year. Thank you so much for your time, Lili. We appreciate it.
You too. Thank you.
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The more time I spend doing this show and talking to young people who are so impressive, the absolute worse I feel about my 20s and 30s. I’m getting older, so you’re making me feel like I blew it in my life. Thanks, everybody. I appreciate that. That was awesome, Lili. It’s incredible. There were tons of great hacks in there, and it was a neat interview.
There are lots of tasty wisdom nuggets. Some of my favorites that she talked about was potentially using your school credit to help you with your job history that we would look to qualify for a loan. One of the other things she talked about was that having roommates is normal in your twenties. Landlording is a simple, natural transition.
One of the many other things she said that I thought was something important that I hope you understand was that she said, “I had no clue that any of this stuff was an option until I went through this myself.” That’s why I do the show so that whenever you’re getting ready to do this, you’re not going to say, “I had no clue this was even an option.”
Another great nugget she had was when she mentioned that the mortgage broker was a monster help to her, not the bank and an online lender, but the mortgage broker. I know that she utilized the co-signer. I want to make sure I say that I understand this is not an option for everyone. I’m not sitting here saying, “Do this. It’s easy.” No, I understand. I get it. Please don’t be a hater and get pissed off at me when I mentioned some of the things that certain people can do, like using a co-signer. I’m here to help everyone.
I want you to understand that once you start your plan and find out where you are, everyone’s going to have a different path and different options. The key here is if you sit back and try and do it on your own, you’re never going to find out about things. Maybe you find out you can’t use a co-signer, but maybe you find out you can use down payment assistance programs, as what they’re technically called.
Maybe you find out that you can use a low down payment program or some of the other first-time buyer advantages that are out there for you. You’ll never be going to know unless you ask. The worst thing that can happen if you ask about this is finding out where you are exactly now, and then you get a roadmap to help you get to where you want to go. Don’t worry about if you don’t have the options that Lili has. She made us all feel bad. The thing that she did was she took her options and ran with it. Keep in mind that everybody’s going to have their own options out there, but you have to find out where your starting line is to figure out how to get to where you’re going.
There are lots of traveling metaphors here. The biggest piece of wisdom I want to make sure that everybody knows is understanding the entire college landlord thing. If you can’t pull it off in college now, or maybe you’ve just graduated or have missed it, I know that many of you are hanging out there still living what I’m going to call a college lifestyle. You’re barely adulting. You got an apartment with your roommates who are all pretending every single day. You get up and put on your clothes for work, and it’s like putting on a costume. I know. I see you out there. Trust me. That might as well be a dorm or apartment you’re all living in.
Go ahead and take the lessons from Lili. You can use it in your twenties, or for some of you may be even into your 30s. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m speaking to those of you who are having trouble adulting and living a college lifestyle well past your graduation day. What I’m going to do since I insulted you is I’ll talk to everyone like you’re sixteen years old. Everybody used this information like you’re a sixteen-year-old getting ready to buy while you’re in college.
If you’re out of college, you can use this information to own that apartment that you and all your twenty-something friends who are living in your stunted adolescents while you’re hanging out all the time, fighting off adulthood with every fiber of your being. This is for everybody, but for the sake of argument, I’ll act like I’m talking to a sixteen-year-old. I probably have one sixteen-year-old there who reads this.
I’m going to call him Steve. I assume that’s your name. Let me tell you. College is crazy, and things are going to start happening fast for you. One day, you go from your parents’ house, and then all of a sudden, you’re in a dorm. Maybe you’re off-campus living in your first apartment ever. Here’s the deal with apartments. They always come with roommates. It’s college. Everybody has roommates. As a matter of fact, Steve, you’re going to find out college has built-in renters.
They don’t need a fancy place. No DIY or HGTV. College kids have very low standards. They don’t need a lot of space. You can fit dozens of them in a four-bedroom place. Have you ever been in a dorm? If you can find a way to buy a regular old standard place and shove 5 to 10 of your fellow students in there, they’re going to pay your mortgage for you. By the time you graduate, you’re going to have gigantic options. See how that worked? Lili had a sweet plan. She ended up buying her place and closed between semesters during her sophomore year. It’s like a year and a half of living in the dorm.
Instead of moving off campus with roommates, with all of them paying a landlord for that privilege, she bought the place and became the landlord. Now, her roomies pay her. The moral is, philosophically, there’s a cool piece to this story that I hope you guys learned as well. I’m talking to everybody now, not just my sixteen-year-old buddy, Steve.
If you are thinking or know someone who’s thinking, “What are you talking about? I’m young. I’m not doing this now. I don’t want to think about that. I just want to live my life, Boomer,” hear me out. This is not about sacrificing and saving money every month so you can eventually have a better life when you’re 50 or 60 years old. That’s easy.
“Everybody understands that. If you sacrifice every month to put money away, you’ll have more money when you’re older.” That’s not what I’m talking about. Steve, you’re sixteen and might not realize this yet, but the rest of you do. You will, and you do pay rent. Look at your monthly bills. Every single month, you pay all your bills. One of those bills is your rent. You only YOLO. You only live that great life with the money that you have after you pay the rent because you want someplace to be able to come home and sleep after you’ve traveled the world. You only use the money after all your bills are paid, but I want you to think about this.
All you need to do is make that sacrifice upfront, not every single month. It could be some point at the beginning of your life, or pick a chunk of time now and do it for the next 3, 6 or 12 months. All you need to do is come up with a down payment. That can be as low as 3% down or even less. It’s 0% if it’s a VA loan or if you can find some down payment assistance programs as the market starts to shift a little bit. What you do is pay a mortgage instead of your rent. That’s not sacrificing any of your trip money or YOLO money. This is moving your rent money from one place to another. You’re moving your rent money into something else. That’s it.
You still have the same payout at the end of the month, just like you did when you paid all your bills and rent. Now you pay all your bills and your mortgage. Whatever money is left over after that, you can still go out and live your best life. If you’ve got roommates, here’s the cool thing. You’re going to be paying the same thing like you always do, but now your roommates are paying to fund your future. All you do is just pay your fair share just like you were going to do as a renter anyway. Did that make sense? If it didn’t, please re-read that again. That’s the philosophy. Let’s go back to Lili.
Another great thing about Lili’s story is she knew her salary as a teacher wasn’t going to be huge, so she did some sick planning. She was forward-thinking and had some killer long-term clarity, knowing that she wanted to follow her passion in her future, but also realizing that teacher’s salary is not going to make her rich. She wants stability, so she started planning and used the years in her twenties.
That has begun. She turned twenty. She will be using that time to invest that would-be wasted rent money into something that will finance her emotional desire to follow her dreams without sacrificing her passion to teach and only needing to make an average salary to live an above-average life. That game is how you get true work-life balance. Do you want your life and emotional stability and make sure that you’re taking care of your mental health? Finance it.
I’m telling you. If you start this plan early, you’re going to be financially set up so that you can go ahead and follow your dreams. You don’t have to listen to the man. You don’t have to be beaten down by the corporate empire. You’re going to be in a position where you’re going to be financially stable and be able to do what you want. You don’t have to ask someone to pay you tons of money to do it.
Don’t hate on me for being some crotchety, old guy, giving you advice that you hate to hear, “Sacrifice now, and you can make rewards later.” I told you guys. I’m with you. I know that statement makes you cringe and want to scream back at me, “Don’t push your values on me, Boomer. I am going to be emotionally healthy. I’m not going to let my career or job define my happiness. I’m not going to work later extra because I need the money. I’m not going to give up any of my PTOs for my mental health.” I’m with you. Hear me out.
This is the best plan to beat the system so you can keep your mental health and reward yourself. If you could find a way to never have to pay rent, then that money that you’re already slated to spend, you already said, “I’m going to spend rent and live on my own,” at some point in your life. If you never have to do that and turn it into something that provides you what you need anyway, like the shelter, but also works as an investment for your future, you’re going to be able to do whatever you want. You’re going to have tens of hundreds and thousands of extra dollars waiting for you that you would not have earned if you were a renter.
Remember, you’ve already planned to be a renter, but you don’t have to. If you’re not planning on buying a house, you’ve already planned to be a renter. Maybe we can fix that plan. Let’s change that plan. I don’t know if it’s going to happen in 1, 2, or 3 years, but it might happen a lot sooner than you think if you could start it with a plan. If you’re looking for that plan, HowToBuyAHome.com is the place to find it. Everything you need is right there. I’m super excited. I can’t wait to do more interviews.
If another nineteen-year-old hits me up on TikTok and tells me that they bought a house, my video producer, who is no longer 19 and the inner me of myself at 19, is going to probably commit hara-kiri in the studio. It’s wonderful to know and highly discouraging and massively regretful for the rest of us. Thanks to all you kids who are smart. Seriously, I’m happy for everybody.
I hope you understand that with the show and everything and HowToBuyAHome.com, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, if you get all that information, maybe you’re going to start a little later than nineteen. It’s maybe 29 or 39. If you hadn’t taken a look at all that information, you would have started even later than that. Get planning. Get on it. I know you can do it. How about you? Do you know? You can do this.
Important Links
- Lili Schoenberg
- Courtland – Previous Episode
- The Richest Man in Babylon
- YouTube – How to Buy a Home
- TikTok – How to Buy a Home
- Instagram – How to Buy a Home
This podcast was started for YOU, to demystify things for first time home buyers, and help crush the confusion. After helping first timers for over 13 years, I knew there wasn’t t a lot of clear, tangible, useable information out there on the internet, so I started this podcast. Help me spread the word to other people just like you, dying for answers. Tell your friends, family, and perhaps that random neighbor you REALLY want to move out about How to Buy a Home! A really easy way is to hit the share button and text it to your friends. Go for it, help someone out. And if you’re not already a regular listener, subscribe and get constant updates on the market. If you are a regular and learned something, help me help others – give the show a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or write a review on Spotify. Let’s change the way the real estate industry treats you first time buyers, one buyer at a time, starting with you – and make sure your favorite people don’t get screwed by going into this HUGE step blind and confused. Viva la Unicorn Revolution!
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