Owe 175000 to sallie Mae and 75000 to the FED. Those with experience PLEASE read

I just started paying back these loans stated above. I have high interest rates on my private student loans. Some are up to 9.75%. They don't consolidate or help at all. I'm looking For the most up to date info in how to save myself. I have no money saved but a good salary. I'm looking into being a first time home buyer. My hopes are that I can get approved for more than the home costs and use what's left to pay off as much of these high interest rate loans as I can. I'm a rookie who is in serious need to help because of poor choices I made to fund my degree nd the fact I never had a co sigber.. Is there anything at all I can do? I have a stable job and have just begun making payments. I just wish I could buy a 400k home and
Borrow more like 650 so that I can have no student loans and focusing a morgage with a much better interest rate. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. This is all taking a serious toll on my life as I worry about it non stop!

Thank you and feel free to be brutally honest. Right now I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel...

There is a major flaw in your logic. No bank will give you more money than your purchase price or apprasial of the house. I can't get approved for a $800K mortgage, but a $400K house and pocket $400K. You are being approved for secured debt, the house value needs to be greater than the amount borrowed.

One possibility is to work for the government in a field that offers loan forgiveness. Another (shady) possibility is to convert your student loan debt to unsecured debt (CC with BT Checks), then default on the CC debt or file BK.

Ihatesalliepay said:   
Thank you and feel free to be brutally honest.
You have no business buying a home, let alone one for $400k. Period.

Agree with above post about flawed logic. You could in theory purchase a house that appraises significantly higher than what you pay for it and then apply for a HELOC and use that to pay off some of the student loan debt.

But again, there are some serious holes when it applies to your situation.
1. With no savings, how are you going to provide a down payment for a home?
2. What bank is going to be willing to lend to you at a favorable rate when you already have $250k in high-interest debt?
3. What bank would lend you $650k for a home when you have $250k in high-interest debt?

You said you made poor choices to fund your degree. Doing as you suggested would be another poor choice. You need to continue to search for solutions to consolidate your debt and aggressively pay down your balances.

Curious what type of degree you get for $250k.

ETA: IBR plan for the federal loans and direct as much extra money as possible towards your highest interest rate private loan. That's all the advice there is for you, unfortunately.

I just wish I could buy a 400k home and Borrow more like 650

I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
and a '64 Impala

Glitch99 said:   Ihatesalliepay said:   
Thank you and feel free to be brutally honest.
You have no business buying a home, let alone one for $400k. Period.

Not true. What if his new salary was $750,000? would you feel the same way. I bet he is a physician who just is coming out of residency. He could be an ortho or neurosurgeon and be making this type of money.

umcsom said:   Glitch99 said:   Ihatesalliepay said:   
Thank you and feel free to be brutally honest.
You have no business buying a home, let alone one for $400k. Period.

Not true. What if his new salary was $750,000? would you feel the same way. I bet he is a physician who just is coming out of residency. He could be an ortho or neurosurgeon and be making this type of money.I dont care what his salary is. Regardless of what he makes, read his post - he obviously needs to get his s$!t in order before even thinking about buying a home.

Ihatesalliepay said:   I recieved a doctorate in pharmacy. I was thinking it'd be better to try to transfer my student loan debt to a morgage debt
If possible because the interest rates are so much better. This year I will make about 145 before taxes. I figured being a 1st time home buyer would have also saved some on taxes. Just trying anything possible to get rid of these super high sallie Mae rates...

1. Commit to a very frugal life for the next couple of years

2. Pick up extra shifts or get a second part-time pharmacy job.

3. Forget buying a $400k house or any house for that matter. You probably wouldn't qualify based on your debt to income ratio anyway. Rent a cheap apartment with a roommate and pay down your debt.

Sorry, this kind of post just makes me feel, well... ill.

You're making 145000? Am I just missing something here? You should easily be able to pay down most of your dept in 2-5 years if you really want to. I guess I just don't understand the problem here.. I mean if you owed 250k and didn't have a job I could understand all the worry, but you're making a good salary. Just suck it up, live very, very modestly and pay it back. Then after that, save enough for a 20% down payment on a house and go for it.

if salary was 750k it would be fine. 145k no way you should get the $400,000 house yet.

Troll thread

How is this a troll thread? Thanks to everyone else who had serious advice. It's like some of you are angry that I'm trying to lower the interest rates on my debts. Sorry I feel renting is a huge waste. Maybe a 250k house is more appropriate as the morgage on this would probably be slightly less than my current rent now. I just hate the thought of how each month when I cut my rent check that it's my money that I will never see again. A lot of helpful people on this forum. Also many people who just enjoy pretending they know everything.
So with the private loans I should just minimize my payments. Then send in any extra money towards those with 9.75% rates. I can't help it that I didn't know if there was a way to refinance it at a better rate. What's stupid is not becoming familiar with these matters. I didn't have a co signer and was forced to go this route to fund my education.
Thanks again,
Mike

Ihatesalliepay said:   Sorry I feel renting is a huge waste.It's not.

Ihatesalliepay said:   How is this a troll thread?

Because you cry about drowning in a hopeless pile of debt, only to later reveal your total debt is less than 2x your annual income. Then, immediately after saying how you feel hopeless due to your debt, you say you want to triple your debt by buying a house (and even specify a relatively expensive house, to boot).

madcowdisease said:   I don't see how adding $400,000 in debt to $250,000 in debt is a good idea.

Unless, of course, your income is extremely high.
OP is hoping, when he (read debt) becomes too big to fail, the govt will bail him out.

Ihatesalliepay said:   How is this a troll thread? Thanks to everyone else who had serious advice. It's like some of you are angry that I'm trying to lower the interest rates on my debts. Sorry I feel renting is a huge waste. Maybe a 250k house is more appropriate as the morgage on this would probably be slightly less than my current rent now. I just hate the thought of how each month when I cut my rent check that it's my money that I will never see again. A lot of helpful people on this forum. Also many people who just enjoy pretending they know everything.
So with the private loans I should just minimize my payments. Then send in any extra money towards those with 9.75% rates. I can't help it that I didn't know if there was a way to refinance it at a better rate. What's stupid is not becoming familiar with these matters. I didn't have a co signer and was forced to go this route to fund my education.
Thanks again,
Mike

Rent a really crappy place you'd never consider living in long term and send the extra money to your high interest loans. Rent is not throwing money away, you either rent the house or rent the money for the house by getting a mortgage. If you buy you'll have all kinds of expenses - taxes, repairs, maintenance, furnishing. The biggest thing is that it'll cost a lot less to rent a place you'd be OK in for a year or two vs. buying a house you'd be OK in for a decade. You can get an FHA loan with 3% down, but if you do that it will mean you'll have a decade of being cash poor verses renting a crappy place for a couple years, hammering away at the student loans, and saving up 20% on a nice house. Just live frugally for a couple years and you'll set yourself up to be comfortable for the rest of your life.

xynder said:   
I have 25,000 in student loans and I make $90,000, and I think that's borderline too much

I really don't see how you could possibly think this.

ppatin said:   jkimcpa said:   Troll thread

That's what I was thinking. A PharmD is a pretty challenging degree, I have a hard time believing someone who completes such a program could be this clueless. Maybe that's just naive wishful thinking on my part.An explanation could be OP is an entitlement millennial. A lot of those these days.

Ok. I had a good time reading up the guy who was going through "hell" about marrying a doctor and now this. What's up with doctors with incredibly high current incomes & future earning potential bitching about their debt? One piece of advice is you don't have to get rid of debt immediately. Think through, work out numbers and in the end choose a path that works even if that path is not compatible with your original idea such as rent is a huge waste. It's not a waste when you need it and you have no other credible option just like your loan for education was not a waste.

The advice about applying for some credit cards and doing a balance transfer is probably the most realistic advice so far. With that type of income, you could probably get several cards with high balance transfer amount and you'd be able to pay down the loans a lot quicker. Only trick is that they typically expire after about a year so you have to stay on top of it.

Also while other people mention all the expenses of owning a home, a basic rule of thumb is that about 1% of the purchase price of the home is spent on maintenance per year on average, some years may be more or less. Usually big ticket items like a roof, heating system, remodel etc comes along once in a while and other years can be pretty quiet. And of course people spend about 10k on average once they buy a home furnishing it.