I am going to try to get started with lanlording and maybe flip 1-2 houses a year. I do not plan on starting until January 2008. Personally, I have just took out a loan for a car, I have my first loan on a house, have credit card debit, and a few hospital bills. What is the best way to approach my situation. Shoudl I try to lower my debt or make the minimum payments in order to save money as equity. I am trying to keep credit high and everything else in order to get the best rates and to keep open the best route which will save me the most money in the long run on my expeditions into the housing market. Please give me insight on what I need to do. Thanks!
I would definitely put a bunch of money towards the highest interest stuff. Also you may want to consider a personal loan to consolidate your debt and reduce interest payments. If you do go that route or just pay off the credit cards the regular make sure you don’t cancel them once they are paid off, keep them open and keep using them a little here and there for gas purchases, recurring payments like your cellphone bill, etc. Charge just enough that you can pay in full every month. If it were me I would probably think about putting 75% towards debt reduction and maybe 25% into a savings account.
Sounds like a good plan. That was along the lines of what I thought. My only other questions is that I do have a credit card with a 7.99 fixed rate. Right now I do not think there is any type of loan that comes close to that. I may be wrong though. Anyone know of any?
If you have good credit you may be able to do a little better on a personal loan, check with your local credit unions, etc. If you are planning to pay all or most of it off in the next year you may want to find a new credit card with a low rate on balance transfers for 12 months. Something in the 0-4% range and transfer everything to that and start hitting it hard with big payments. Then hopefully you will have all/most paid by the time the rate adjusts to standard terms.
Or if you want to think outside the box a little you can find a family member with enough to cover it and offer them double what their savings account is giving them currently, with savings accounts paying almost nothing at this point they can double their return and you can save money.
Personal loans are running 10% for secured loans. I don’t have enough colateral for a secured loan. I know I am not going to have it paid off by January 2008. I guess I am going to try do the snowball effect and pay higher on the lower interest / lower principal and normal on the higher interest / higher principal. Once the lower one is paid off I can take that same amount I was paying on the the lower one and apply it to the next lower one increasing its payment. That is all I can really think of because of the current high interest rates out there. Unless someone has any other ideas?
Like I said, try a local credit union. Mine gave me a decent rate unsecured when I had mediocre credit (no negatives but had a high DTI at the time and high balances).
The best bet I can think of is what I suggested with finding another card with a low introductory balance transfer rate and moving everything to it. AMEX usually has a bunch of these available.