Hi Gary ,
You don’t have to justify your values. I think they are great ideas that you have.I always say “what you don’t spend you don’t have to earn”
My choice, when I first bought in 1992, was a shack in the Ghetto.My second choice was the same.I have always wanted to live as though it wouldn’t even matter if I lost my job.I personally had a great experience going that route and have many friends from that neighborhood. I stuck to those values and now have a wife that shares them. We are debt free including our nice house, not in the ghetto. I can not imagine working to pay for luxuries. Obviously other people don’t mind. “Different strokes” as they say. Had I stretched and struggled at the start I could have become a BK statistic instead. I have a friend that went the cheap condo route and stayed single. He has it made as he realised early on that all he needs is shelter for himself and his motorcycle. He can afford to spend a lot of time doing things and going places he would not be going to had he became a debt slave. Instead of spending time most of his time with his boss at work he spends more of it with whoever he wants to.
On the condo note. There are entire condo conversion buildings where nobody got a good deal. One example, in your neck of the woods, is the Sunterra project at 589 N. Johnson.
There are 120 units, almost every if not all buyers are at least 40k-90k upside down.That wouldn’t be so bad but their payments are $2000-$2500 for places they could rent for $1000. I believe there are many crazy loans involved. Unless the banks intervene, it would seem that most of these are getting on the foreclosure train. This is scenario is happening all over the county.
Best wishes.
