Young and Saving
September 3, 2008
By Mukesh Chatter
There's an article in the Boston Globe about the pros and cons of home ownership for students, factoring in different costs vs. returns for students living in an expensive city with high rents.
The gist of the article, after the students met with a financial planner, is that when you're young and still in school many of the factors associated with home ownership - lack of flexibility with regard to faraway job offers, unexpected maintenance costs - may not be the wisest financial move, even with home prices currently lower than they have been.
The financial planner suggested building up an emergency fund and savings, through bank CDs, High-Yield Savings accounts and other safe investments with a relatively high return.
You can see the entire article here - the advice contained inside can be of use to those of us who are no longer students, as well.
Comments
On
Friday, September 05, 2008
Leverett
wrote:
In a city like Boston, where real estate is still very expensive, the argument for buying a home while in school isn't very good. However, this is probably different in other states where housing prices are much more reasonable. In a state like, Texas, where an average home could be less than 200K, it might make economical sense to own rather than rent even while in college. It's still amazes me that despite all this housing gloom and doom, real estate prices in good towns in MA has not dropped much at all.
On
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Anonymous
wrote:
The emergency fund is such a good idea. It took a while to save up 6 months' expenses... but now that I have it, a lot of my anxiety has gone away. I know I'll have half a year to find a job if I lose my current one. I don't know how I survived before.
Now it's now hard to imagine NOT having that amount saved. Yikes!
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