Since housing prices are still sky high by us, my wife and I did some research. We looking into modular (manufactured) homes. For those not in the know, Modular homes are not mobile homes, they are mostly prefabricated in a facility, then shipped in pieces, and assembled on site. Most of the literature makes it seem that it is much, much cheaper to do this.
From the cost of the house itself, that would be true. a 1,600 sq ft home starts around $160,000. So great deal right? Wrong. That is just the price of the home. by the time you buy the land ($20,000-60,000), dig and pour the foundation (~$20,000), get utilities set up, ($5,000- $15,000) and then have the land grated and a driveway poured ($8,000), you are already looking at a $250,000 to $300,000 project. We assumed it would max out around $250,000 not start there.
Our original plan was to finance the land, pay it off over a couple years, prepare it ourselves, and then once we either have the cash or have the land paid off, put the house on the land. But that would have been for a max cost of $200,000. Which would be approximately a $1,000 monthly mortgage payment. A home that is already built for that price around us right now, is a low square footage, needs a lot of work, fixer upper. And we don’t have the time for that right now in our lives. Plus our rent, utilities, and insurance is $750/month once we factor in our roommate, who most likely won’t be joining us when we go to a house.
So looking at our current situations, I’m spending $600/month just on my private student loans. Which sit at $18,000 right now. I’ve been looking at dumping my savings to knock out some of the higher interest loans (which sadly are my biggest so there is no debating the avalanche vs snowball because they literally are both the same). That would bring me down to just under $8,000 left, which if I focus really hard and bring in some extra cash, I could have them paid off within the year. That would leave me with my federal loans, which only set me back $185/month. But I’m still holding out hope that someone in the government will knock out some of that. Plus all of those loans are sub 3% interest, so not super worried about those.
If I knock out that debt, and with the extra cash going I have been putting into my loans, I could reasonably save/invest over $1,200/month. So the real payoff of not having debt will mean that the slightly over $10,000 I have now will be back within 2 years. Faster If I can work on a side hustle.
So for now, we are going to stay in our apartment that is priced below market value, and keep making our financial position stronger. If I can even start a side hustle that profits me $300/month, which is totally doable, I can be debt free completely by March of 2023. And I’ll be able to save over $2,000/month on my own.
Personal Fixer Upper 