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James Edmister
  • Fort Worth, TX
4
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15
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Pay down student loans faster or buy our first property?

James Edmister
  • Fort Worth, TX
Posted Aug 14 2016, 06:14

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?

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