House hacking/paying off student debt

[Hannah DeVries]

Hi ! 

So I am currently a civil engineering student, on an internship year between by 3rd and 4th year. I am hoping to save around $50,000 in my investments by the end of internship, then will have 8 months of school before I graduate. I may need to take some of that money out for my 4th year of school but not too much. I will also owe $31,000 to OSAP once I'm done. 

Is it best to pay back OSAP right away, or should I use some of this money for a down payment? And should I keep any of that money saved for retirement ? I'm sure I will be told to pay back OSAP slower if my investments are making more than the OSAP interest but I also hate having debt. 

Also if I do buy a house, should I house hack or buy a house for myself? Either way, I want to eventually house hack, just the question is should I buy my own house first or live in a house with roommates/another unit? 

Thanks!!

[John Warren]

@Hannah DeVries my wife and I paid off all of our student loans when we got married instead of investing. We paid of 39k in loans in 9 months with pretty low paying jobs. We found great satisfaction in being debt free.... fast forward and I realize that we missed the great garage sale of all real estate garage sales. We could have picked up nice properties for 30-40 cents on the dollar, but we were so concerned with the 6.8 percent interest rate, and we were doing the Dave Ramsey debt snowball nonsense... sigh. 

Now we have a TON of good debt on real estate, and I have realized that debt helps you grow exponentially faster. I would tell you to buy a nice house hack all day long before you pay off your student loans. You might even get lucky and be able to pay them off with equity from appreciation in your property instead of saving up...