Help a young man with a decision..

[jessv3]

Thanks all for your wise thoughts and opinions .

I am ever so tempted in following the heart because after doing some rough math, I figured that the ride would put me off buying the place by about 6 or 7 months, which isn't too long considering my First Home Account only matures in July next year (4th year rule) -- and instead of renting, I might (sigh) move back with the old folks for 4 or 5 months (they would love that, seriously) to save that extra bit of coin.

The car that I have my eye on is this (2008 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF GTI DSG PIRELLI V MY09 Cars For Sale in NSW - carsales.com.au - carsales.com.au). Is this a good deal? How much should I be expecting to be paying for something like this? How much can you haggle off the dealer? From what I hear, things are getting desperate (fear of a second dip financial crisis etc).

I am in no real rush, and if it goes before the sale of my Swift, it goes and so be it. .

It looks nice but its fairly expensive considering you still want to buy a house in the next 6-12months. I would be looking at GTI's in the mid 20's, sure it wont be a pierelli edition but if you look hard you will find one with all the option's, and you can always chip it if you want that extra bit of power.

[mfl]

It looks nice but its fairly expensive considering you still want to buy a house in the next 6-12months. I would be looking at GTI's in the mid 20's, sure it wont be a pierelli edition but if you look hard you will find one with all the option's, and you can always chip it if you want that extra bit of power.

+ 1 to that. property prices in Brisbane, will probably go down further before they start to go up and you are only talking about a 6 - 7 month delay.

get yourself a GTI in the mid-20s then you have the ability to customise as much or as little as you want. Bluefin Stage 1 upgrades are good beacuse of their price-point.

you don't want to be sitting on the porch of your house, wishing you had bought the Golf , life is way too short.

[deek]

Buy the property and take out a novated lease on the car for say 3 to 5 years. Then if you can afford it, buy it or re lease it

Cheers
Deek

[brad]

Property however always increases in value even though the increase has slowed in recent years.

Maybe in WA they haven't gone backwards.
My house in Sydney (20km from the CBD & a good suburb) has dropped 10-15% in the last few years. We've been here 13yrs & it's gone up about 60%. That's not including maintenance costs, loan costs, etc. None-the-less, it's better than paying rent & having a landlord.

To the OP: There have been a fair few GTIs on the forum that have sold in the low $20s. How a bout going halfway & looking for a GT twincharger?

I'm in 2 minds. I did the "be sensible & knuckle down" thing when I was early 20s & bought a house & initially missed out on a lot of the experiences my friends had. OTOH, I had a boatload of fun buying old cars, thrashing the daylights out of them & buying another. Also, most of the stuff our friends did early (Europe trips, etc) we did in our late 20s & did for longer, did more & remember it all because we weren't stoned/drunk all the time.

[Jamie]

The only reason it is attractive is because of a pathetic taxation system designed to help baby boomers.

Hey... I'm a middle income baby boomer without kids & I can tell you the tax system does SFA for me... The top few get cuts, the bottom gets benefits... but the middle... meh !

Jamie

[iwfc]

Thank you all.. I am indeed leaning towards getting one. I've put it this way -- life's not worth living without some fun; in saying that, it is not like I am blowing all my money on the GTi, but I'll still manage to scrape on through in about 6 to 7 months time on putting a decent deposit down on the place.

In my research/observation, I notice that the standard edition GTi's seem to hold better value than that of the Pirelli. I say this based on my observation when I was browsing at the dealership after hours (it's my reward after I physically run out there and run back satisfied) that the Pirelli with 23k's on it and DSG is going for $34.9 whilst an 08 manual GTi, with 43k's and no sound system (?!) but with leather is advertised for $33.9. What's the deal?!

[stickshift3000]

What they're being advertised for isn't necessarily the price they're sold at....

[jessv3]

I wouldn't be basing a price guide on whats at your local dealer, chances are its 20-30% overpriced anyway. I would be spending my time looking on carsales particularly at private sellers, you can gauge a lot by meeting the owner, and seeing first hand what type of person he or she is. If anything Pirelli's are more likely to hold their value due to their rarity and obvious better specs, personally if i was paying mid 30's for an MKV it would want to be a R32.

[MariusGT]

someone said it earlier.. buy the house first - then see how many $$ are available for your car purchase/lease.

especially if you are buying the car with finance - it's a debt you don't need when going for a mortgage. also the bigger the deposit the less (if any) lenders mortgage insurance you pay. and that is a big one - yes it's tied into the loan but it's still a big whack if you only have 5-10% of a deposit.

car now + house later.. and things don't work out because the car is costing you too much = bye bye car
house now + understand your budget + car later = an all round better option.

either way the one will come a few months after the other - sooner you get into the property market the better IMHO and there will always be plenty of 2nd hand GTI's on the market waiting to be snapped up.

[stickshift3000]

What Marius said. ^

I was in a very similar situation to yourself 6 months ago. Just bought my first house and loving it.

Property prices are going up, gti prices are going down. Hold off for a while on the car, it's a no brainer to me.

But it's your life and your decision.

[bindolla]

I would say get the car (and doesn't have to be the Golf V). Pay a good portion upfront, but enough savings to purchase your house down the track.

Try pay the car off within 1-1.5years.

While you're enjoying the car, do your research and study the market, go to auctions. When the time comes to buy, hopefully you'll know what to expect.

[jettapilot]

I know you guys love your gti's but they're expensive. Why has nobody suggested a compromise upgrade to a non-gti mkv??
TDI maybe?

[Drift]

I would say get the car (and doesn't have to be the Golf V). Pay a good portion upfront, but enough savings to purchase your house down the track.

Try pay the car off within 1-1.5years.

While you're enjoying the car, do your research and study the market, go to auctions. When the time comes to buy, hopefully you'll know what to expect.

With the market slowly entering recovery, he could likely buy a brand new GTI with the extra he'd pay on a house in 18 months. Not a smart move IMHO.

[Ideo]

With the market slowly entering recovery, he could likely buy a brand new GTI with the extra he'd pay on a house in 18 months. Not a smart move IMHO.

Awesome.

Did you study chicken entrails or just consult some tarot cards to get that?

[MariusGT]

Awesome.

Did you study chicken entrails or just consult some tarot cards to get that?

that reply makes ZERO sense. unless you are fishing?

the guy has asked advice - he is receiving many and varied responses, aside from yours - which is pointless (yet rather funny..).