Keeping the box, and still getting a house
 

Well, after searching left and right for many weeks, my wife and I decided to skip the purchase of a temporary replacement vehicle and sell the Boxster to pay off my 401K loan and buy a house. I went out this weekend to buy my nephew's BMW Z3 for 5K. But aside from some cosmetic damages that would have needed some work, what killed it for me was the fact it was an automatic! To me, a sports car just isn't a sports car without a clutch so it was a no sale.

Neither of us wanted to sell the Boxster, so the decision really wasn't that difficult. We decided we have other ways to pay off the loan, so our house search continues. Only now we'll be looking for a house with at least a two car garage or potentially an RV pad so we can have room for a 911 (possibly a project car as I need a hobby) to go along with the Boxster. Hopefully we'll find what we want sometime between April & June of next year.

Oh, I forgot. If anyone has a BMW and is interested in the diagnostic software let me know. I think I managed to find it all. Easier by far to find that that for Porsche. :)

Do you have a working DIS/ GT1 setup?

I haven't tried it yet, but the how-to and software are supposed to work withthe correct hardware. Send me a PM and I'll send you a link with the info I have.

Is your software capable of DME flashing?

Now is still a good time for house shopping if you have your finances in order. I agree that keeping the Box and paying off the 401K loan are probably excellent goals. Once you get a house you will have a built-in hobby because it just always needs something...

At least one of them can. I'm not a BMW expert, but the packages include GIS, DIS, Easy DIS, TUS, INPA, etc.

Having owned a house in the past, I have to agree. But I'm really hoping I can get a house with either a two-three car garage or an RV pad so I can work on an older model 911 or something. The other day on Craigslist I saw an ad for a early model 911 roller (looked like fresh paint too). He wanted 6K for it, but one day he posted a buy it now get it off my trailer ad for 2.5K. If I had of had a place to put it, I'd have bought it!

Maybe in CA. everywhere else I disagree -- it's a good time to SELL. The Fed is tapering, a new Chair is coming in (uncertainty) and banks like BOA are already queing up thousands of mortgage division employees for layoffs because interest rate jumps are already cooling off loan demand. Year over year home sales went up too fast. If you are on the buy side and a market moves up well above its short term average, over the last year alone, something is about to correct agasint the seller -- big, sudden waves in RE don't last forever.

In any case, when you have a market (like RE) whose buyers are bidding primarily with borrowed money, the last thing you want to be is the one of the last buyers to jump onboard. The market never seems to take Warren Buffett lessons (be greedy when there is fear) to heart no matter how many times we go bust. The minute the banks opened up their valuts again, a buyer should have been scooping up distressed properties, because the banks needed them to do so -- badly. But like all things real estate this is the end of yet another bubble to bust cycle. There will be more and given that we've already used our govt bail out Trump card once with TARP/TALF/etc., I think the next bust could be an even bigger drop in home values as banks will be expected to take the haircut they avoided last time. IMHO, home buyers have become pawns in a never-ending speculative bubble by the Fed and the lend-to-securitize banking sector.

Frankly, unless you live somewhere where rentals are in short supply and cost of ownership is high, I don't understand the emotional need to own (just because everyone else is buying... if anything you should only be doing it when no one is buying). Particularly if your real estate positions represents half or more of your asset portfolio. With some its nearly all of their net worth. Given the volatile history of RE/mortgage market, more diversification/bigger cash position is needed. So many Americans are retiring on a prayer because they over-leveraged on their home and missed out on other investments because nearly all their income went into the mortgage and related costs.