Dave Ramsey and buying a house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dave's advise is not applicable to the DC area where job loss is non existent, housing is high and so are incomes

Sorry, I just couldn't skim past this. Job loss is non-existent? Gee, good to know. I'll tell that to my husband who was laid off last week in a massive downsizing. He'll be so relieved.

[Anonymous]

Using Dave Ramsey's advice, we went from being heavily in debt to being debt free in 5 years including paying off our mortgage. For his financial advice to work, you need to tweak it to fit your finances. We tweaked it hard but never did we do without.

We sat down, made a plan, carried it out. I will say this, if you and your spouse aren't 100% together on this in any way, it won't work. Honesty and being open is in itself a great stress reducer. I wish I had heard of Dave 20 years ago. We'd be so much better off now but we can only move forward.

Dave Ramsey — 'If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.' . ABSOLUTELY TRUE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think not using credit cards is a good idea for people who have no self control. As I have no problem with spending and can pay off my credit card each month, I still use one.

I think trying to buy a house here with manual underwriting is stupid and hope people in this area aren't dumb enough to follow that piece of advice.

It's not just dumb-it simply will not work here. Ever. Your offer will be the weakest every single time. With houses getting multiple offers you would be totally screwed. But regardless even if you are the only offer I would suspect the sellers agent would advise the sellers not to take it and wait for one that has customary financing.

It's just simply not feasible here and I really can't think of any area in which people actually want to live that it would be.

I understand the whole goal of Dave is to be able to pay cash for everything and have no debt but in reality not having an excellent credit score takes away so many opportunities. Unless you are a millionaire already there is no way to live here without credit.

I would love to know these places that people are renting/buying that don't require credit.

You can follow the basics of his philosophy and still buy a house. Like a pp said, don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Paying off your debts will get you a good credit score. It takes years of not using credit at all to get a zero credit score like Dave has.

Yes I know but he also recommends closing your cards which in turn will actually lower your credit score. Better to have the credit available and unused. I feel bad for the people who call into him because he always has the same answer for everything and he doesn't get that some of his principles just simply don't work in some peoples situations. Then he just yells at people and makes them feel like crap. But to him it's so simple and easy. I guess it's all easy when you are a millionaire.

Umm, he wasn't always a millionaire. He used to be deep in debt.

I know this but he is a millionaire now and has only ever lived in a place that is not considered a large metropolitan type area so he has no idea how his principles would work in other places. Tennessee is not a good comparison for other parts of the country. He is out of touch with other people's reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think not using credit cards is a good idea for people who have no self control. As I have no problem with spending and can pay off my credit card each month, I still use one.

I think trying to buy a house here with manual underwriting is stupid and hope people in this area aren't dumb enough to follow that piece of advice.

It's not just dumb-it simply will not work here. Ever. Your offer will be the weakest every single time. With houses getting multiple offers you would be totally screwed. But regardless even if you are the only offer I would suspect the sellers agent would advise the sellers not to take it and wait for one that has customary financing.

It's just simply not feasible here and I really can't think of any area in which people actually want to live that it would be.

I understand the whole goal of Dave is to be able to pay cash for everything and have no debt but in reality not having an excellent credit score takes away so many opportunities. Unless you are a millionaire already there is no way to live here without credit.

I would love to know these places that people are renting/buying that don't require credit.

You can follow the basics of his philosophy and still buy a house. Like a pp said, don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Paying off your debts will get you a good credit score. It takes years of not using credit at all to get a zero credit score like Dave has.

Yes I know but he also recommends closing your cards which in turn will actually lower your credit score. Better to have the credit available and unused. I feel bad for the people who call into him because he always has the same answer for everything and he doesn't get that some of his principles just simply don't work in some peoples situations. Then he just yells at people and makes them feel like crap. But to him it's so simple and easy. I guess it's all easy when you are a millionaire.

Umm, he wasn't always a millionaire. He used to be deep in debt.

I know this but he is a millionaire now and has only ever lived in a place that is not considered a large metropolitan type area so he has no idea how his principles would work in other places. Tennessee is not a good comparison for other parts of the country. He is out of touch with other people's reality.

[Anonymous]

While I don't listen to Dave Ramsey regularly, he is a firm believer in cutting out all the unnecessary expenses out of your daily life to save $$ and get out of debt. You don't NEED a new car and cable and a Starbucks. He wants people to understand need vs wants. Some people didn't learn basic finances early in their life and now need to dig out. Don't get off track with the credit score stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dave's advise is not applicable to the DC area where job loss is non existent, housing is high and so are incomes

Sorry, I just couldn't skim past this. Job loss is non-existent? Gee, good to know. I'll tell that to my husband who was laid off last week in a massive downsizing. He'll be so relieved.

+1 I'd love to live in pp's reality

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dave's advise is not applicable to the DC area where job loss is non existent, housing is high and so are incomes

Sorry, I just couldn't skim past this. Job loss is non-existent? Gee, good to know. I'll tell that to my husband who was laid off last week in a massive downsizing. He'll be so relieved.

+1 if you can't get a job immediately in this area there is no hope for him

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While I don't listen to Dave Ramsey regularly, he is a firm believer in cutting out all the unnecessary expenses out of your daily life to save $$ and get out of debt. You don't NEED a new car and cable and a Starbucks. He wants people to understand need vs wants. Some people didn't learn basic finances early in their life and now need to dig out. Don't get off track with the credit score stuff.

Op here. Obviously a lot of his plan works. I'm not contesting that. I just wish he would update the manual underwriting and credit score crap because it's not realistic and in most if not all cases it simply will not work here. You can't have a plan that only works in some places and in some situations. Not having a good credit score will negatively effect everything you do unless you have all the money you could ever want/need already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Recently I was having a discussion with some friends about how you could never buy a house in the DC area using manual underwriting as Dave Ramsey advises. Obviously if you have cash for the whole purchase price that is one thing but nobody would accept an offer with manual underwriting here and you wouldn't be able to get paperwork in order fast enough when you have to go from house to house here quickly when your offer isn't accepted.

Thoughts? I imagine this only works in areas where nobody actually wants to live so people are just happy to accept any offer.

To be honest I feel like many of Dave Ramsey's principles don't work here.

Dave Ramsey's kind of an idiot, so whatever

[Anonymous]

I think it's great advice for financially ignorant people out in BFA, but not meant for people with any degree of financial sophistication. He shouldn't really be discussed on a site like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's great advice for financially ignorant people out in BFA, but not meant for people with any degree of financial sophistication. He shouldn't really be discussed on a site like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's great advice for financially ignorant people out in BFA, but not meant for people with any degree of financial sophistication. He shouldn't really be discussed on a site like this.

We are not his target market, that's all I have to say. He is probably like most of personal finance media, simple platitudes but sold in comfortable attractive pitch.

[Anonymous]

You can't even rent a hotel room or a rental car without a credit card. Not everyone is as well connected as David Ramsey is or have our own private companies to pay for our travel expenses.

What is manual underwriting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't even rent a hotel room or a rental car without a credit card. Not everyone is as well connected as David Ramsey is or have our own private companies to pay for our travel expenses.

What is manual underwriting?

Exactly I'm not sure why he thinks this is no big deal? You quite literally need a credit card for many many things. Renting a car, reserving a hotel as you mentioned etc...There is actually a Facebook group for following Dave Ramsey and someone asked about car rentals and someone was like "oh at so and so company you don't need a credit card". It was a company in like 2 states that was very very small. That's great but what if you are visiting any other area?

Manual underwriting is when a company literally has to scrutinize all your financials because they can't use the automated score to assess mortgage risk. I don't think there are many companies that do it. There is one that Dave recommends but I have only heard of that one. Either way you cut it-manual underwriting will not get you a house in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

Good luck getting airplane tickets without a credit card.