Austin, TX · Member since 2009 · 15 posts · 1 vote
Alright so, other than my introduction, this is my first post here. I have been thinking about this idea for a while, but I need some perspective to un-noobize it.
Owning a Lambo is definitely one of my dreams in life and I hope to achieve it. I'm a senior at the business school at UT and I'm graduating this December. I plan on working for a while to build up some cash and then purchase a home around $100-150k as my first home. Now I'm assuming my salary would be able to afford a $1500 monthly payment for my mortgage and $400 for my car payment.
My idea is why not swap the two payments. I want a used Lambo to avoid the depreciation costs. A used 04 Gallardo runs for around 90k. I would use the $1500 per month to the car on a 60 month lease and $400-600 for the mortgage payment.
Then once the car payments are done, that frees up $1500 per month and I could purchase another house and begin to lease out that house or the original one.
Developer · Santa Clarita, CA · Member since 2008 · 15k+ posts · 10k+ votes
17y
You all have it wrong.
To afford a lambo right off the bat, all you need to do is become a big wig at AIG, screw everything up and get a few million in bonus money from your fellow tax payers.
Real Estate Investor · the villages, FL · Member since 2008 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
12y
No Bentley. Not that kind of guy. I thought I was going to have to sell the Viper when we were looking at homes in The Villages, FL since most were 2 car PLUS golf cart garage. Found one 3 car garage which we bought and are starting a 500 sq ft addon to garage today. Wifey not pleased.... I told her I was going to look at the home owned by Jay Lenos' mom with 8 or 9 garages-wifey quieted down and allowed the addition... Not sure what will go in it other than his and her golf carts when completed..... I love this place. Wish I had done it 10-15 years ago. Rich
I gotta ask, does anyone drive a lambo in Austin, Texas? Doesn't seem like there would be enough room for a 10 gallon hat!
Just joking, no offense to anyone out of Texas!
I've seen a burnt orange (UT color) Lambo, don't remember the model. Just last week I saw a Gallardo on the northwest side. More likely a tech entrepreneur than a big hat rancher.
Broker/Investor · Georgetown, TX · Member since 2011 · 249 posts · 146 votes
12y
Hard to carry paint/ladders/tools in a Lambo. One of the largest REI guys I ever knew drove a government surplus Dodge ½ ton pickup. He said it was because both deals and tenants were easier to work with when he showed up in his Dodge than his wife's Mercedes. Good luck getting your tenants or sellers to see things your way if you are driving a Lambo.
Lender · Greater LA/Orange County area, CA · Member since 2012 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
12y
I like the Bentley however I rarely think about it and forget to drive it. It is not the center of my life (obviously).
I had intended to drive it up to Solvang to hits my uber-elite Mastermind Meeting, the Bottomfeeders. However, despite having two batteries (I suppose one for the engine and one that runs all of the ridiculous gadgets) it was as dead as my probates.
Lucky perhaps because as we were leaving the conference my buddy, the big foreclosure trustee, rear ended my Cayenne Turbo just enough to require body and paint work. Had I driven the Bentley, it would have had a much more expensive scratch.
Investor · Arlington, VA · Member since 2014 · 151 posts · 37 votes
12y
Hey @Tom Doan . Without having read every reply in here, I kind of have a general take on the direction this thread has taken.
I'm not going to convince you not to buy an expensive car, but I will tell you where I have been with a near similar plan while I was going through my undergrad.
I have been into cars for a long time. I postponed going to college because I was pursuing a life style that involved cars and motorsports. I built a solid car for drifting and attended events at tracks back in the mid 2000s.
When i started goign to college for mechanical and motorsports engineering, I was planning to use my degree to leverage my lifestyle when I got out of school. In fact, I had assumed I would use my starting $60k engineer salary to build a professional competition level drift car and work up to driving with the big boys. I graduated in 2010 and got that great engineering job right out of school and hit my career running.
I became a Nuclear Engineer and still am. I started working on my plan by starting a new drift car build from scratch. At the same time, I got interested in investing in real estate as it was a good time to buy. I bought my first house, along with progressing my drift car build, as well as a new truck to daily drive (different story). As you can imagine, that was literally all my money, while paying student loans. For the first two years, I spent a good chunk of my income into my car build. Although it was fun building the car, I realized with a normal day job, it is hard to find the time to actually go to the track, or even find extra funds to add to my car, maintain it, while trying to do real estate investing, so i put the whole car stuff on pause last year. By doing that, I was able to save up enough to purchase my second house, which I am currently in the process of gutting and renovating.
I currently make an additional $10k on top of my original salary from a couple years ago, yet I find myself pursuing my motorsport plan to be unrealistic at a $70k salary level. Also I must mention the area I live in is not an expensive metropolitain. I'd imagine my situation to be teh same if i lived in a larger area with a slightly higher salary at around $80-85k.
I'm not going to tell you to not buy a whatever car you want, but just consider my story, and perhaps prepare for a lack of funds for real estate investing if you really want that dream car of yours. I'm not going to tell you it can't be done, but with limited assets, I would do some very detailed financial planning.
Investor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2009 · 566 posts · 274 votes
12y
I'm not really sure I want to add to this thread but here it goes....
I think I'm in the opposite position right now. I can afford a nicer car however I'm trying to be very careful with an upcoming vehicle purchase. Since I transact business in the Midwest (and was born and raised here) most of my investors or potential investors are extremely conservative people. I'm worried that if I even jump up to the "Mercedes" level that I will look like a jack a** to my investors. Which I completely don't want. Most of my network consists of conservative Midwestern people who would be completely turned off by such a purchase (Lambo). Possibly later on in life after a massive amount of success has been achieved but who knows. I always wanted a black Ferrari...mainly after I purchased a used black Honda Civic out of college. I use to call the black Civic my black Ferrari. It cost so little to maintain and it's still on the road (sold it to an employee).
Like @J Scott I like to enjoy my life however always maintain a healthy balance.
Investor · Columbus, OH · Member since 2013 · 72 posts · 18 votes
12y
Living in Cincy, or Columbus for me, isn't too small for a supercar. I wouldn't drive up to a rental in it, but I'd definitely rock a Ferrari. Although those things are poor investments (however, at that level they may actually be investments), a goal of mine is having the means to purchase them.
After all, I want to work hard so I can afford nice thing.
"Entrepreneurs like a few years like most people won't, so they can live the rest of their lives like most people can't."
Lender · Greater LA/Orange County area, CA · Member since 2012 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
12y
Tom Doan - It appears that you've disappeared from the BP community.
The original question was not whether he should buy a Lambo, but how.
Here's the lesson that no one talked about:
You will get bored with your toys and want new ones. Consequently, if you obsess with how to finance and acquire one, you will at dome point very likely to be like the guy or gal who got married in a whim. Easy to get, hard to get out. If you've financed, even tougher.
If you find it necessary to finance your toys, it will later become a distraction. It will distract you from attracting money and doing deals.
If you focus on doing profitable deals, on the other hand, you can buy all the toys you want and play with them (or just play with the boxes) until it's time to go back to work.
When I was fired from my corporate job and lost use of my company car, I had no other choice but to drive the Ferrari convertible I had at the time. I felt like an idiot driving up to a prospective hard money loan borrower's house and trying to justify my rates and fees. Did that just once then bought an SUV for around town. Painful.
So, I guess our original poster lost interest or got impatient. Probably left because he didn't get people to co-sign his plan. Old Chinese proverb: Marry in haste; repent in leisure.
Residential Real Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2013 · 281 posts · 110 votes
12y
Although I agree with most users here I can appreciate his thought process...being 30 i'm not too far removed from thinking that you enjoy things in your "youth" the most.
While you might go do more dumb things with your flashy car in your youth, your enjoyment level is not dependent on age. In my honest opinion you will attract the wrong people before you have the wisdom to realize it when you pose as someone who is very wealthy.
What will most likely happen if he bought such a car is he will be too embarrassed to live in a house he can afford...i mean who drives a lambo to a normal house...that wouldn't impress the high maintenance people he'd be attracting that's for sure! He'd either have to sell the car and live more practically or rent a very expnsive house to keep up the charade.
Specialist · Chesterfield, MO · Member since 2014 · 43 posts · 3 votes
12y
This debate rages on in my head almost everyday. Should i sell my perfectly fine Toyota Camry for a Benz CLS 550 or a Audi A7.... I worry about what message it sends to my sellers as some house i buy are under 10K . Plus with driving 30K miles a year being a full time wholesaler, the difference between 32 mpg and getting 18 mpg is a huge difference. I try and justify it by saying you sell tons of houses, you deserve it. And that might be true. But is the negative out weighing the positives...plus being in my 30's now with kids, is driving a 90K car really a good idea? Owning a lamb is on my bucket list, but I have about 20 personal goals to hit before i buy one.
Real Estate Investor · the villages, FL · Member since 2008 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
12y
I am sitting in Seattle airport after a 37 night Cruise. Glad to be on land again and not paying $.75 per minute for internet. Checking some forums I hadn't seen for awhile. There are some really good posts here, imo, and I agree with most.
I do disagree with a couple thoughts:
Joshua Springer- I'm no longer in my youth, but I certainly enjoy life, and that includes driving my free and clear Hennessey Viper SRT around in the Florida sun with the Stones blaring from the CD player. I don't think age has much to do with it. I drove a Porsce 930 Turbo at age 27 (had a lease payment) and it may have slowed some estate growth a bit. I tried to conserve costs in other things: like a smaller house, a station wagon for the fam. etc.I do enjoy knowing that if the Viper sits in the garage, it isn't costing me much.
Phillip Vincent- 2 cars will fix that concern....
I've owned a Lambo (older one) as well as many other exotics. The main point is I never had a loan on any of them so they weren't a drag on my investing options. I have also tried to live well below my means so I sleep very well at night, even though I play all day.... Rich
Chicago, IL · Member since 2013 · 136 posts · 32 votes
12y
You need WAY MORE than $1500 a month to own a lambo. The oil changes will cost that much for example. Plus it deprecciates almost instantly after the first time you turn the key.
Also, who parks a lambo at a $100k house? I see people with $100k+ cars all the time living in 1 bedroom apartments, it just doesn't make sense.
You are young, pay off your debt from student loans etc, then save, then invest, then when you're 40 and you become suddenly aware of your mortality and have a midlife crisis, you can buy a lambo no problem.
I had a long talk with my father back on my 30th B-day.....
It was about finally understanding what the hell he had been telling me all of those years, the stuff i never listened to! :lol:
I have come to realize that I actually get a little dumber every year.........At 18 I thought I new it all, and every year that passes, I realize more and more of the things I don't know! LOL
The moral to the story, sometimes dumber is smarter! :mrgreen:
My advice is to buy decent used car, most successful people will give 2 craps about what you drive, they will only care if you are someone who will hustle and MAKE BUSINESS HAPPEN!
Take all of that money you are thinking about spending and invest it in real estate....
If you do that, you might be paying cash for your dream car in the future!
BOOM!!!! perfect answer!!! couldn't of said it any better myself.
You should be pretty safe if you stick by his rule, don't spend more then 10% of your annual income on a car, or The Millionaire Next Door's, don't spend more than 2% of your net worth on a car.
Looks like we need to step it up if we want to go 0-60 in 3.something seconds in an Italian work of art.
Alright so, other than my introduction, this is my first post here. I have been thinking about this idea for a while, but I need some perspective to un-noobize it.
Owning a Lambo is definitely one of my dreams in life and I hope to achieve it. I'm a senior at the business school at UT and I'm graduating this December. I plan on working for a while to build up some cash and then purchase a home around $100-150k as my first home. Now I'm assuming my salary would be able to afford a $1500 monthly payment for my mortgage and $400 for my car payment.
My idea is why not swap the two payments. I want a used Lambo to avoid the depreciation costs. A used 04 Gallardo runs for around 90k. I would use the $1500 per month to the car on a 60 month lease and $400-600 for the mortgage payment.
Then once the car payments are done, that frees up $1500 per month and I could purchase another house and begin to lease out that house or the original one.
What do you guys think? Any help is appreciated.
I've done pretty much exactly what you are asking about. I always said I'd get a Ferrari by age 30 but I was making more money than I ever thought I would at 27 and realized it wasn't enough for a Ferrari, and while my salary was high it wasn't going to grow much more in that company/career, so I decided to meet my dream halfway with a Dodge Viper.
I rented an apartment for $500/mo and bought the Viper at $1,100/mo. Then of course I needed something for the winters in Michigan so I bought a Cadillac Escalade a year later at $800/mo. I also read Rich Dad / Poor Dad round this time which motivated me to buy a rehabed turnkey rental property in a class "d" neighborhood about 2 hours away from my apartment for more than it was worth which was a financial stalemate but a cheap education.
You can imagine the looks of conflicted amusement on my neighbor's faces when I had $120k of cars out front of my 800 sq ft townhouse that was probably worth $100k (looking back, if I lived in a warm area, that would paid for a Ferrari afterall - curse Michigan snow!).
About 6 months later my Viper visited the repair shop enough times to be eligible for the lemon law and I pounced on it as a money making opportunity.
It took two years to get the lemon law case settled (smallish settlement) then I sold the car at a discount to a private buyer - I liked driving the Escalade better about 80% of the time anyway. When I sold the Viper I took the cash flow I was no longer losing to the car and bought a duplex (still had the turnkey) and rented the other side. Probably a turning point for me.
I traded the Escalade for a 300c (with a Hemi!) which did ok in the snow by itself, then a couple years later I bought a Caddy STS-V. Finally, I sold that upon moving to New York where I no longer needed a car and I haven't had a car since because the company provides one as an expat (and I miss not being able to choose a sportscar!).
Long story short, having the Viper early was mixed - I scratched the itch at $70k vs $150k or $250k and it allowed me to focus on investing shortly after. Without the lemon law "out" and going somewhere I couldn't drive though I probably would have stayed poor for a while longer; same game plan but a lot less cash flow to fund it.
When I finally get home though I'm going nuts. Ferrari and Bentley are minimum. I'll probably throw in a Range Rover for the wife now too since I'm married now. All cash this time around.
Gotta enjoy life a bit or what's the point, ya know?