11-23-2008, 10:54 PM
I'm not really seeing any reason for you to sell right now. All of the issues you are experiencing are not specific to your car, and therefore are not going to change if you get something else. The only thing that I could see as being a remote benefit would be the extra cash for a down payment if you bought a beater, rather than replacing it with a new car. Considering the two options you laid out, you'll only be further in debt and in a worse position to buy b/c you'll have an extra monthly expense.
For the record, based on my recent observations, the housing market is a buyer's market ONLY if you have cash laying around. Yes, house prices are cheap, but if you aren't paying a large lump of it in cash, you're not going to be getting a house. The 100% financing options are all gone, 95% financing is getting extremely scarce (especially for 1st time buyers), and it's all a pipe dream if you don't have stellar credit. I'm not shitting on your hopes here, but I don't want you, or anybody else, getting blindsided when they want to buy a house who have been hearing people saying "it's a buyer's market" who don't understand that available credit is the other half of that equation. Yeah, things may get better by the time you're in that position, but the loan offerings have been shaken up considerably in the past year.
Keep the car and enjoy it, keep saving your money to buy a house, and then consider your options once you've made that leap. And how is Texas more RWD friendly? It's not like we get 16 feet of snow every year...
Sorry for the rant.
For the record, based on my recent observations, the housing market is a buyer's market ONLY if you have cash laying around. Yes, house prices are cheap, but if you aren't paying a large lump of it in cash, you're not going to be getting a house. The 100% financing options are all gone, 95% financing is getting extremely scarce (especially for 1st time buyers), and it's all a pipe dream if you don't have stellar credit. I'm not shitting on your hopes here, but I don't want you, or anybody else, getting blindsided when they want to buy a house who have been hearing people saying "it's a buyer's market" who don't understand that available credit is the other half of that equation. Yeah, things may get better by the time you're in that position, but the loan offerings have been shaken up considerably in the past year.
Keep the car and enjoy it, keep saving your money to buy a house, and then consider your options once you've made that leap. And how is Texas more RWD friendly? It's not like we get 16 feet of snow every year...
Sorry for the rant.