He's no different than the rest of us - we tend to learn from our mistakes. I believe many of us could have or would have made this same move back when the deer in the headlights look came all up on us at the sight of a set of wheels within our reach. When my daughters got to driving ages, their "I want to buy a [cool looking ego based ride, but a sh-- box in disguise]" gave me a touch of anx at first, then I remembered my own early vehicle desires, before we learn things like foreign car parts are often very expensive, and it pays to shop for interest and insurance prices. In our teens and early twenties, the common sense part of the brain sometimes isn't yet connected to the wallet portion of the brain. ;-)
At the tender age of 40 something, all the local banks had me believe that the only way to buy or build a house is with 20% down. Tain't so. A friend steered me to a mortgage broker who taught us that one can get a home loan with much less down, and when barely within the new millennium, he found us a Nixon era killer rate. Because we were financing with less than 20% of skin in the game, we paid a $35 per month PMI charge. At least we were building equity. A few years later, we re-fi'd out of the 5 year construction loan, and by then the house had gained enough value to eliminate the PMI. Once again he found us a great fixed rate at 6.5 Had I listened to the local banks, we would still be renting. The best part - the banks paid the broker for his efforts.
