The Uplifting Power of Balloons
Hey there. Tony here. I figured to get this blog started off right I’d talk about one of my favorite investment tools – the balloon mortgage.
In recent months people have been calling me on the air and getting scared about these really cool alternative mortgages. They act like borrowing a chunk of money for really cheap is a bad idea! Well, let’s set the record straight RIGHT NOW! You probably all know what a balloon mortgage is. It’s where you borrow money to buy a house for a set period of time… like 5, 17 or a 100 years. You pay little interest payments while you enjoy your beautiful new home… and then at some point, you’re supposed to give the bank a lump-sum pay off.
So what’s wrong with that? NOTHING! It means you get to live in a nice, big, awesomely cool house for cheap. With the way property appreciates, by the time the bank wants you to pay ‘em, you could probably just take out some other kind of loan.
The reason all these budget-loving (read: sissies!) “investment” gurus advise against balloon mortgages is because they’re folks that live for some vague future. They don’t live for today! So they slave away at their jobs, paying their little mortgages off, living in tiny houses when they could be living high on the hog and enjoying TODAY! THAT’S financial freedom, let me tell you! I like to think of a balloon mortgage as a lovely hot air balloon, lifting us into a stratosphere far above what middle-class incomes used to allow. A kind of candy land shortcut to gumdrop mountain. It’s a good thing and it annoys me to hear it derided in the media.
Remember: debt isn’t a bad thing! It’s a tool. And you can live like a millionaire today, so who cares if you ever become an actual millionaire. Just get a big balloon and enjoy the ride, okay?
Until next time,
TG