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Important Links:
FSBO
Selling Tips
Planet Money Podcasts
Robert Reich’s
Blog
Talking Points
Memo
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"How
I Went From Being Flat Broke to Owning My Own Home, Mortgage
Free, in Just 5 Years..."
 Two
years ago, I wrote a 50-page report titled How I Went
From Being Flat Broke to Owning My Own Home, Mortgage Free,
in Just 5 Years.
After writing my report, I discovered that most people could
not imagine the possibility of living in a house that wasn't
owned by a landlord or a bank, or they didn't understand why
anyone would sacrifice a few luxuries today in order to have
financial freedom a few years from now. Needless to say, my
little report was not very well received by the public at
the time.
Since the report was written, events in the US economy have
made many of my recommendations completely out of date. Flipping
a house, as I did, is no longer a rational business model
because house prices are now falling, but many of the other
ideas in the report are still valid for financial security
- buying a house that costs less than you can afford,
for instance.
I've decided to put the complete report on this site, for
free, so you can see exactly what most home buyers didn't
do before the housing bubble crashed. If they had, the world
economy would not be having the problems it's having now.
Here's how I originally introduced my report on how to get
out from under a mortgage:
 I'm
not rich, and I never have been. You can see from the photo
that my house is not fancy, it's not big, and it isn't likely
to impress anybody.
But it's mine.
Living without a mortgage isn't completely free of financial
worries - I still have to pay property taxes, and there's
still an electric bill and a gas bill and a phone bill...
But the biggest cost in most family budgets has been
eliminated from mine.
 I
don't pay rent, and I'm not writing monthly checks to the
bank.
I live in a safe, family-oriented neighborhood, and I can
easily walk to the library, the post office and the bank.
My current home is sitting in one of the most beautiful valleys
in the country, in a small city that was listed by The Mother
Earth News as one of the "10 Best Places You Never Heard
Of." I've been living here for almost a year now, and
I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
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But, I have to admit that people thought it was pretty
funny when I first told them I was going to buy a house.
They didn't believe it was possible.
It was possible five years ago - although I doubt that I
could become mortgage-free so quickly if I were starting today.
I managed to get out from under a mortgage by following some
fairly simple rules, and coming into the housing market at
the right time. Those rules may not have the same results
today that they did back then, but I believe they're still
good rules to live by. If you would like to read my story,
just follow the links below:
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