Risks (in your opinion) that you took financially that paid off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The whole I took a risk by stretching to buy a house is gross. You had advantages that allowed you to afford one. Some posters make it sound like they went out west in a covered wagon looking for gold. Also a house is a place to live. It's equity is useless unless you sell it or take out a high interest loan against it.

Hm. Ok, here are my stats. It was 2002. I bought a foreclosure in a part of DC that almost all white people and most black people wouldn’t go near. I was self employed with unreliable income of about $50k if I was lucky. I got an adjustable rate mortgage with $12k down (borrowed from my IRA almost emptying it). I paid $220k and had no idea how I was going to fix it up. The porch was rotten, the roof leaked, the boiler was 50 years old and the windows rattled. There were bars on the windows and doors and rats in the alley.

Did I take a risk? Absolutely. At the time I needed somewhere to live, and that was what I could afford. It was also a beautiful house despite being run down and anyone who didn’t see that and turned it down because of the drug deals next door or the shootings at the end of the block, were idiots. I fixed it up slowly and made nearly $1m when I sold it nearly 20 years later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole I took a risk by stretching to buy a house is gross. You had advantages that allowed you to afford one. Some posters make it sound like they went out west in a covered wagon looking for gold. Also a house is a place to live. It's equity is useless unless you sell it or take out a high interest loan against it.

Hm. Ok, here are my stats. It was 2002. I bought a foreclosure in a part of DC that almost all white people and most black people wouldn’t go near. I was self employed with unreliable income of about $50k if I was lucky. I got an adjustable rate mortgage with $12k down (borrowed from my IRA almost emptying it). I paid $220k and had no idea how I was going to fix it up. The porch was rotten, the roof leaked, the boiler was 50 years old and the windows rattled. There were bars on the windows and doors and rats in the alley.

Did I take a risk? Absolutely. At the time I needed somewhere to live, and that was what I could afford. It was also a beautiful house despite being run down and anyone who didn’t see that and turned it down because of the drug deals next door or the shootings at the end of the block, were idiots. I fixed it up slowly and made nearly $1m when I sold it nearly 20 years later.

Similar story here. Bought on Capitol Hill in 1996, when most white people wouldn't walk the streets at night. Paid $140K, sold for $890K.