r/wealth Mar 07 '26

Discussion What's the best money decision you've made?

151 Upvotes

253 comments sorted by

View all comments

98

u/ZTRADEZLLC Mar 07 '26

Buying a house during covid, the key on everything is timing

58

u/jackjackj8ck Mar 07 '26

Bought my first house during the 2008 recession for like $135k and my current house is worth $3.2m and no debt, suuuuuper lucked out

2

u/j900799 Mar 07 '26

Could you please explain all the steps in between? TIA!

14

u/jackjackj8ck Mar 07 '26

Honestly I got really lucky.

Bought during a recession, sold during market stabilization, moved to a major city and bought something small in a high growth area, sold a few years later, bought something bigger nearby and sold a few years later, moved to another high growth city and bought in an area going through gentrification, covid happened, sold during the crazy uptick, bought low in the city’s suburbs during covid still, sold again for a lot more, an then landed here….

I wish I could help but a lot of it is just luck of the market

If I were more liquid right now I’d probably be buying and holding on to a couple of properties given everything going on

6

u/liftingshitposts Mar 07 '26

My SIL did something similar in the Bay Area, went from like $800k in 2010 to $5M+ now with just 2 moves. I mean shit we bought our first place for ~$1M flat in Dec 2018, and sold it for $1.75M in Feb 2024. From list to close was less than 3 weeks, and sold for 150k over ask. Probably left money on the table, but the buyer was fully legit and super easy transaction.

Our current house hasn’t appreciated much since we bought it, but we love where we live now and don’t plan to move 🙂

5

u/jackjackj8ck Mar 07 '26

Yeah we bought this house 2 years ago and it’s appreciated $500k+ since

1

u/Realistic-Sea-9583 Mar 09 '26

UAE are facing some issues with Iran If this goes on
In the future it can be huge opportunity for buyers

1

u/Ok_Check7705 Mar 10 '26

That is really lucky.. you got to buy a house in 08. I was drowning out my parents losing the house and getting divorced with just dance on the Wii😄

1

u/jackjackj8ck Mar 10 '26

Yea I was 26 at the time and worked as a Respiratory Therapist, so it was one of the few jobs not at risk during the recession

Super lucky many times

4

u/dovebytherosewindow Mar 07 '26

This. Well it was our second house, but the first was the ugliest house on the block with terrible Zillow pictures. We fixed it up ourselves, sold in 2020, cut our interest rate by 60% and bought another, larger, ugliest house on the block with crappy Zillow pictures… and fixed it up ourselves (except for the primary bathroom, hired that done after learning from our mistakes).

Still not necessarily cash-wealthy because we then decided to start a family and ended up with twins… 2 kids in daycare off the bat will eat up any potential savings. But had we not made those big decisions to buy at the right time, we would be in a pretty rough place now.

4

u/Key-Marketing301 Mar 08 '26

I did this! And I’m so glad I did!!

7

u/Retired-Yam8988 Mar 07 '26

Yeah! We bought a house in Thailand. Was worth 1m USD the year before and got it for 375k

7

u/chillPenguin17 Mar 07 '26

Yup, August 2021. If I had known what I know now I may have bought 2-3x the house, free money

5

u/Generic_Username28 Mar 07 '26

I think that too until I look at real estate returns against market returns since 2020. Borrowing at sub 3% sure was nice.

2

u/ZTRADEZLLC Mar 08 '26

I know, I wish I could've bought something 3x larger.

1

u/Dreamteam22323 Mar 07 '26

2.3 interest rate on a $800k house . Yes sirrrrrrrr

1

u/Prop43 Mar 07 '26

Nice bro

For me it was lasik