Pay debt or start buying Real Estate right away??

[Natalia Gutierrez]

I am a 33 year old, with $98,000 in student/car loan debt with an average interest rate of 6%. I have been working and saving all I can for the past 3 years and I have $50,000 saved until now. I am debating whether I should just focus on paying my loans and then invest. I think I can pay them in the next year with my income. Not sure what to do here, would appreciate some advice. Thank you!

[Will Fraser]

This debate is as old as debt itself, or so it seems! The real answer to this lies somewhere buried deep inside your goals.  It will be very beneficial for you to understand what you want (from life) in the next 10, 20, 30, and 50 years and then to figure out what fits into that better.

Something else I'll add:  not all debt is created equally.  Fixed rate debt at historically low interest rates tend to be ideal, while variable rate or high rate debt is suboptimal.  So, if you had a very long time-frame loan at a low interest rate, I'd be tempted to use available capital to invest in real estate while maintaining enough cash to securely service that debt. If it was a credit card (extremely high interest, variable rate, etc) then I'd pay that thang down ricky tick!