buying property

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vaio

vaio

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how does one go about doing that with no income and being a full time student w/ student loans?

I believe there are dental students who have bought homes/ or an apmt instead of renting? any of you on sdn that could shed some light on the matter
 
I just bought a house recently before I start school this summer. I have little to no credit so my dad cosigned on the house with me. We got 97% financing (3% down payment) although you can get 100% financing these days. Finally, get three roommates and let them pay most of your mortgage. If you do this in the right area, you may be able to sell it back in 4-5 years and pay off most of your tuition (depending on where you are going). Obviously, not this easy..but it is a good investment to look into. Land never depreciates.
 
gamecock83 said:
I just bought a house recently before I start school this summer. I have little to no credit so my dad cosigned on the house with me. We got 97% financing (3% down payment) although you can get 100% financing these days. Finally, get three roommates and let them pay most of your mortgage. If you do this in the right area, you may be able to sell it back in 4-5 years and pay off most of your tuition (depending on where you are going). Obviously, not this easy..but it is a good investment to look into. Land never depreciates.
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If you can get roommates to pay your mortgage, this may be a good idea. There is a good thread called "rent vs. buying" that covers a lot of this already. Right now, about the only places you can have enough appreciation to pay your tuition is Utah and New Mexico and neither of those states have a dental school. So, don't buy a house thinking you are gonna make hundreds of thousands of dollars off it. The market is very different then it was a couple of years ago.

Also, land can depreciate, look at Arizona, and Las Vegas.
 
I bought a house when I first started dental school. Generally if you have modest appreciation and you are going to live there 3 or more years its better to buy. Having said that, banks won't give you a loan on the intentions of you being a dentist and making money so if you don't have a working spouse, then having a co-signer will be the most viable if not only option. Hope it helps, good luck!
 
There are a few factors worth your considertions when buying a house. Interest, property tax, maintenance, HOA. These alone could end up making you pay more than you'd ever imagine.
 
legoland said:
There are a few factors worth your considertions when buying a house. Interest, property tax, maintenance, HOA. These alone could end up making you pay more than you'd ever imagine.
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Exactly! Make sure you do your homework first. Some states (ie Illinois) have high property tax rates. You could be spending $2k-$3k annually for property taxes alone. Since we are full time students, we don't get the typical tax advantage of being home owners. Writing off mortgage interest and property taxes as deductions does us little good without an income.

The only advantage is home appreciation. But in today's market, that's not guaranteed. I'm hoping for 6%-7% annual appreciation over 4 years, otherwise I should have rented.

Finding roommates to help pay your mortgage is the best thing you could do. That's basically tax free money.
 
If you can buy a fixer-upper in a good neighborhood in a good school district, you can gain a lot of equity in the first few months as renovate (make sure you can afford to fix it after you have paid your down and closing costs). You can expect a 3-6% increase in your home if your market is decent. Also, make sure if you go this route, you expect the renovation to take twice as long and cost twice as much as you are expecting. After four years and resale of the house, you should be able to put a small to large dent in your dental school debt.
 
we were lucky enough to buy a house during our first year of dental school. We stumbled upon a low income housing project right in the middle of a neighborhood that had homes from 300's. it was a brand new house, and since it was pretty cheap, we were able to get a no doc loan, which is more expensive than a conventional loan, but since my wife stays home with the kids, and we didn't want to involve our parents, it worked out great. there are ways to buy a house, but it pretty much depends on your situation. if this house wasn't priced as low as it was, for us it probably wouldn't have been worth it to buy with a no doc loan.
 
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