Honestly, I don't think you'd be any more likely to buy a house as you are to actually buy a car.
But I guesss.. to answer the question.. buying a house that costs 20k less in order to buy a car that costs 20k more is an incredibly bad idea that should be obvious. First, you live in your house.. you just drive a car. Second, a car is a depreciating asset and a house is generally an appreciating asset. Over the long term, a house will appreciate in value in proportion to it's cost. In other words, a 200k house might be worth 250k in 10 years. A 1 mill house might be worth 1.25 mil. The difference in appreciation is 200k.
Those are numbers I just pulled out of my arse, but you get the idea. A car is always a big money drain. In fact, it's probably the biggest money drain you'll ever have besides kids. This is espeically true if you keep buying a new car every 3 or 4 years.
I know it's exceptionally difficult to do, but as a general rule of thumb, if you start in your early 20's taking in more money than goes out, putting money in a retirement account (401k etc.).. never paying any interest on anything except a house, you'll find yourself in your 40's with several hundred thousand dollars in the bank. You don't have to earn 6 figures to make that happen. It just takes a willingness not to have to buy things that are out of your reach.
Last edited by Micas; 12-15-2009 at 11:39 AM.
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