What would you do with 20k?

Philosophisches

There’s another linkjuice-win-me-some-hardware-if-you-link-us-game for us german bloggers (sponsored by a bank called creditplus) that I’d like to take part in. If you’ll also try to win an Android G1 or a netbook, just follow the link and write a blogpost like this one. Those guys ask to write about a rather interesting but relatively unspectacular question: What would you do with 20.000€?

I think most people would get rid of some debts, buy a new car or some new furniture or a kitchen or something like that. I in fact would do the opposite: take another debt! Or to put it in other words: make my next big debt easier to afford.

Me and my girlfriend are actually searching for a flat or a house to buy, and that stuff comes with debts in ranges of 150k-200k€ … and even if you know a house costs 170k€, you’ll most of the time have to pay 10% (+17k€) for feeding the bureocrats and the real-estate agents. So I’d have to take a debt of about 187k€ if I wanted to buy a house thats worth only 170k€, and the debt for the last 17k€ is usually more risky for the banks as that money has no direct safety (say, if you died, the bank could take the house to make up for the 170k€ you won’t be able to pay them anymore, but they can’t take back their 17k€ you needed additionally). More risky debts mean higher interests, and that means it all gets more expensive.

Image by wallyg via Flickr

Therefore I think I’d take that money and feed it to the real-estate-agents. Who get way too much money for the work they do anyways. The remaining money … well, I think I’d buy a kitchen and a new computer like everyone else.