College Student Wants To Ask Her Grandma Who Pays Her Full Tuition To Also Buy Her A House She Can Live In For Free
This student is asking an awful lot of her grandmother.
Ground Picture / Shutterstock College tuition is an expense that some people can't even fathom trying to afford. Some are lucky enough to have family members who help them out.
One woman in that situation decided she didn't just want to stop at college, though.
A college student called into The Dave Ramsey Show to ask about buying a house.
A student named Elizabeth placed a call into financial expert Dave Ramsey’s radio show and asked hosts George Kamel and Jade Warshaw about someone buying a house for her. Kamel posted the clip on his TikTok account.
“So, I am currently a college student, and I am getting all of my college paid for by a family member right now, and I’m renting, again, through that family member,” Elizabeth explained.
She then shared her idea with Warshaw and Kamel. “I would like to propose the idea of buying a house to this family member and then possibly buying it from them after I graduate,” she said.
Kamel was shocked. “Hold on, they buy it for you?” he asked.
“They buy it,” she clarified. “I live in it until I graduate, and then once I start making a steady income, buy it from them.”
Elizabeth thought she had the perfect argument for why this would be a great idea. “With the rent I am paying right now, buying a house would be cheaper in the long run,” she stated.
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“Wrong answer,” Kamel put in.
“Hold on,” Warshaw said, stepping in. “The same family member that is allowing you, like paying your rent now and paying your way [through] college, you mean to tell me you’re going to go to them and say, ‘Hey, why don’t you also buy a house, for me to live in,’ and then the assumption is that you’ll buy it from them?”
The question of why Elizabeth wouldn’t buy her own house came up.
Kamel had an excellent idea. “Why not just... get yourself in a position to buy a house? Why do they have to be involved?” he asked.
Elizabeth protested that wasn't a possibility. “Because straight out of college, I won’t, I don’t have … “ she said.
“But you don’t have to be able to buy a house straight out of college!” Warshaw argued.
Kamel asked how much Elizabeth’s current rent was, and she revealed that her grandmother pays $2,500 each month for her. Elizabeth also called her plan to get a house from her grandma “hypothetical.”
“That’s my worry, is, there’s a lot of assumptions here,” Kamel said. “And one is that renting is, just, I might as well get a mortgage. $2,000 in rent. $2,000 in mortgage. It doesn’t work like that because there’s property taxes, there’s insurance, there's maintenance, there’s all of the surprise repairs.”
Kamel’s final advice to Elizabeth was, “I would work your tail off, get a down payment, work on just continuing to stack up cash. And when you’re ready to be a homeowner, you’ll be a homeowner.”
It seems like Elizabeth would be asking her grandmother for a lot more money than she realizes.
Elizabeth seems to only be looking at the fact that her rent and a mortgage payment likely wouldn’t be that different. However, she ignored the fact that a down payment would have to be made.
According to Chase, a down payment on a house is usually 5% of the home's full price, at minimum. The total cost of a house naturally varies by location, but according to Rocket Homes, the average price in the U.S. is $416,100.
5% of that price is $20,805. This would likely be a significant financial burden on Elizabeth’s grandma, especially considering that she already pays for her tuition.
Instead, Elizabeth should focus on being grateful for the help her grandmother is willing to give her and not ask for more.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news, and human interest topics.