IrvineRealtor said:
ipoplaya said:
Nude said:
CalGal said:
save that money and get a HUGE jump ahead.... I guess i’m just too practical.
I agree. That's exactly what we did and we were able to buy a house a lot earlier than all of our friends. I wouldn't change a thing.
Same here, but we bought the house, then saved for the wedding/honeymoon. Suddenly our budget became more realistic.
My wife (then girlfriend) threatened not to sign loan docs on our home purchase unless we were engaged. I popped the question a few weeks before escrow closing! One mortgage was way cheaper than two rents back then so we spent a bundle on the wedding. Kept it small but very nice...
I always knew I liked Mrs. Ipop... I just never knew how much until you rolled in with that tidy tidbit.
Had to do what I had to do ten-man. I wanted the house bad, as prices had been sky-rocketing each and every phase release, so it was in my best financial interest to produce a ring pronto. I knew the house would be a good investment and didn't want to be "priced out".
The ring purchase was quite an ordeal. This is a bit of a story, but I'm in a loquacious mood this evening so stick with me... I rolled into downtown LA one afternoon to try and find a "deal" on a ring. Was wandering around some building in the jewelry district, lost, and happened to see a sign with a name I recogized, Tacori. I walk in and its obviously not a jewelry store. Some dude is having his lunch delivered and paying the delivery guy. I turn to slip back out the door and he says "Can I help you?". I'm like, "Uh, I thought you were a jewelry store, I'm looking for a Tacori ring, you know where I can find them around here?". He says "Well, we don't sell them here. This is the Tacori headquarters". No idea who the guy is so I press on with my fact-finding mission and say "Well could you at least give me list of the retailers you sell through?"
He asks me to come back to his office to talk so I follow. He's eating his lunch and starts drillin' me with questions about what I was looking for, etc. and then drops the bomb that he is Paul Tacorian, owner/founder of the company. This was before the company got big time doing rings for The Bachelor... I chat him up some more about his business and he evenutally offers up to do a ring for me. Rifles around in his desk in between bites and pulls out a tray with perhaps $500K to $1M of cold hard diamond bling and we start picking some stones for the ring. A little part of me is thinking I need to pop him in the face, grab the stones, and run like hell... Calls the lead designer in and we sketch it out. He's getting fired up a little because it's a vintage look he hasn't quite done before. Then, we negotiate price, come to a figure of $10K, and he says "I'll need that today, in cash please. We're leaving for vacation this afternoon and it would be good to have some pocket money". Friggin' vacation pocket money for him is like 20% of my annual take home at the time.
I'm only armed with credit cards so I run halfway across downtown to Wells Fargo, withdraw $10K, stuff it in my underwear and socks, and then walk back past around 100 vagrants, homeless, etc. sweating bullets all the way thinking I'm going to get jumped, robbed, lose the money and opportunity to score a cool ring. Fortunately for Mrs. IPO I made it back in one piece and two weeks later I picked up a custom-designed Tacori original for a couple of grand less than I'd have paid for a retail model in a jewelry store. Sometimes it's great to be dumb, lost, and lucky...
