Pay down student loans faster or buy our first property?

[James Edmister]

Ok, I have read through the student loans posts and didn't see anything quite like our situation, so I figured I'd lay it out and see what you all thought.

My wife and I have about $230K in combined student loan debt. She's a doctor of anudiology and I'm an engineer and both went to school full time and lived off the loans. Seemed like a good idea at the time I suppose. Most of it is private through Sallie Mae and Wells Fargo, so not much hope in the way of loan forgiveness or a settlement unless we go into deferment, which we won't do. 

We also moved into our first home a few years ago and have about $140K owed on the property. Credit card debt is around $4k and we have one car payed off and one with about $10K remaining on the loan.

We make enough to make the minimum payments on everything and have maybe an additional $1.5K a month.

A lot of the suggestions in the student loan posts were to move into a duplex and rent the other side out. That is not something my wife and I are willing to do. What, do you think, is the best way of going about getting into real estate? Should we work on paying down our student loan debt as much as we can or continue making the monthly payments as we always have and use the extra to finance our first property?

[Steve Vaughan]

I don't think this is a math problem anymore. Analyzing rates of return on RE vs the student loans, the cc's, the car, etc  would've mattered years ago at the point of decision, but not anymore.  Choices have consequences.

I challenge you to demonstrate you are serious about this. In 3  months' time, pay off the stupid credit cards and car. $1500/mo isn't sacrificing nearly enough.  Brew your own coffee and brown bag your lunch. Every day.  If you're not willing to cramp your style enough to plex hack, let's see if you can do small things every day to improve yourself.

Rates on the cards and car don't matter. Take action, James. See you Nov 30th!