Real Estate the Ramsey Way - Should I Buy a House to Get Out of a Toxic Relationship?

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Buying a home to escape a toxic relationship can lead to costly mistakes. We break down what you should think through when making major housing decisions. Next steps: 🏠Not sure what to do next when buying or selling your home? Check out our ⁠⁠Real Estate Home Base⁠⁠ for free tools and resources to guide your next steps. 🏠And if you’re ready to buy or sell your home, ⁠⁠connect with a RamseyTrusted® real estate agent⁠⁠. They’re experts who’ll help you confidently navigate homeownership the way we teach. Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

I'm in a pretty toxic relationship, not abusive, you know, but definitely needs to end. And I've been working on saving for a house. And it's been more pressing lately that I move out due to the nature of the relationship. So I found a home and it's within my budget. I'm working with a Ramsey agent. I have no debt. But the home needs pretty significant repairs and I legitimately cannot find another one. It's a seemingly good value in the property, but it does need repair.

I don't know what to do and how to move forward. Yeah. My caution always when someone goes and buys a home in an urgent situation, it's not always the best purchasing mindset to be in, if you will, right? So like if you had called and said you had been looking for a while and you find this and you really love it and like there's some more, you know, I don't know. There's one situation I may say yes. I'm a little concerned that because you're running from a situation urgently to get out of, which I, That's great. It's not really urgent for what it's worth. It's been prayed through and thought through for years, and I just now have the ability. So I don't know what the right move is. Well, my actual question is, you said, I have some concerns. I'd love to know what your most pressing concerns are about this move.

It definitely needs new electric, the entire home. It's very old. So I'm looking at 10 to 12K for that. It needs a new roof within the next several years. It needs a new porch. So those two things combined are probably another 30 or so. It really looks like it needs about 50 to 70,000 worth of work within about a seven-year, five-to-seven-year span.

Now, I can handle it. That's the thing is I can actually handle it, but I wanted to truly, you know, make a 20-year mortgage work. I couldn't get a 15, but I couldn't afford the 15. But I could make a 20-year work, and I wanted to make that work. but in my head now, like, I do need to leave the relationship. And I'm not, I don't actually qualify for an apartment. I can get a house, but I can't get an apartment. Why?

I have no credit because I do what Dave Ramsey says. Yeah, we have a lot of Dave Ramsey listeners who can get into an apartment. So. I understand. I'm in the low 600. And everywhere around me need to 640, but I did qualify for a mortgage with about 6%. Well, again, I'm going to challenge you that, there's a way, this is, this is again, you go in and you get past the policy and you go talk to a person.

And you go, here's why my credit score is what it is. Let me show you my entire financial life. Like if you sit down with a manager of a place like that, I think there's a way where there's a will, there's a way. But let's go back to this. The house itself, you're the one that called us with concerns about this house. And then you just said, I can handle the costs. But I just wonder if this is the right house. and I also wonder back to Rachel's point, I'll bet you there's some elderly folks who have a room over a garage, be happy to take your money as you're in a transition. This just doesn't seem on the evidence that you've given me like this is a really solid decision. And I don't think you think it's solid either. And that's why you call.

So I would not do it for those reasons. Okay. It's an old dilapidated house. It's going to have way more problems than you've just identified. you're moving into this house only because you think you can't get an apartment. And what you've done is you've narrowed your choices falsely to this. And yet your gut and your brain and heart are going, this is probably not a good idea.

I want you call two strangers and get their take. That's where I'm at. So that all tells strangers. Oh, we're friends. Yes, Steve. I'm not your friend. I'm not Steve's friend. The point stands.

I appreciate the respect that you called us. But we're completely objective. and I'm telling you it's screaming bad decision. I would rather see you say, yes, I have three homes I've been looking at, and out of the three, this is probably the best deal, maybe more work and all of it, but I have multiple options, or I have an apartment that I, you know what I'm saying, like whenever there's only a one solution to a problem, that's usually when people make bad financial decisions.

I'm not saying specifically this is a bad decision, but all the circumstances around it give us some red flags from what we've seen. And again, you said it's not urgent, but you're like, I need to leave this relationship, but I can't live in an apartment. So it does feel like you say it's not, but it does feel like it's become the only solution right now for you.

Is that true? Absolutely, yeah. So that's what we don't like. I'd rather you, again, have option A, B, and C, and you may hate B and C, but at least there's other ways out that you can figure out that, you know, it's not just the one. So I would run the numbers. Usually homes like this,

as you probably know, Steve, you're smart guy. Like, it's, you know, it's always more expensive than what you think. There's always more issues than what you think. And if you choose to walk into that, which a lot of people do, because they just, they'll have the fixer up for, and that's what they know when they're comfortable with it. That's fine, right? And if you have the money for it, and that's what you want to do. It's just all the data points around it, give us hesitation and pause. Yeah, so I would call on a few more apart. Steve, honestly. Like we, we did that a few years ago. I mean, it's here in Nashville. It's not in Hartford, Connecticut. And they were like, I don't know, 15 apartment complexes that were called.

And I think, I don't know, maybe five of them said no, but more than half said yes, that you don't have to cry a story. If you have first months rent, last month's rent, all of it. Like, you're going to be able to find a place. This house is not the only option. Those policies are designed, obviously, to be a filter for people that have made bad financial decisions because I don't want to rent a place to somebody who's not going to pay, but you have a very different narrative, I'm sure, and you can prove it. So you got to go sit down and prove it to somebody and go, let me tell you why I've got this score, which flagged me. I think that's far more doable than you think. But again, if I was coming out of a toxic relationship, Rachel, and I loved

your advice, I just want to go land somewhere for a bit. And I don't even, and I want to be flexible as I possibly can. Yeah, a home purchase you do not want to rush into. And certainly not an old... And justify it. Do you know what I'm saying? Oh, it's going to be fine. It's going to be, you know, But at the end of the day, you're like, is it, though? Like, is it really the best option right now? Yeah. And here's what I know about really old houses, because I have a friend, you and I have a mutual friend. I will not say their name.

And they have a very, very nice old house in this area. It's almost like a landmark. And I swear to you, every time I talk to him, he gripes about all the things he's doing to that daggam house. Yeah, it's a lot. So my point is, is it's more than the porch and the roof. And it's just a mess. Electrical.

It is, yikes. Hey guys, thanks for listening to Real Estate the Ramsey Way. Now, if you're here, you're probably thinking about buying or selling a house. It's exciting, and one of the biggest financial decisions you'll ever make. But you don't want to do it with an inexperienced agent who will rush you into costly mistakes, like the ones some of our callers find themselves in. You need a pro who knows what the flip they're doing and will keep you on track with your financial goals. That's why we only recommend Ramsey trusted real estate agents. These are vetted, hand-picked pros who actually listen to your needs, guide you through the process, and fight to get you the best deal. To find a Ramsey trusted agent near you, go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash trusted agent. That's Ramsey Solutions.com slash trusted agent. My wife and I about two years ago, we bought a rental property townhome in Tampa, Florida,

right? But we reside in Miami, Florida. Right now, every month, the payment that the tenants are sending us is around $2,400, right? But the monthly mortgage that we pay is $2,800. So I just kind of wanted your advice on that just because the way that we were thinking of keeping the home, we're not, we're in between, right? Whether they're selling it or we're keeping it just because of long-term equity in the future. But let me ask a quick question. How did we get okay with you having a $2,800 mortgage on it, but only $2,000? charging 2,400. It was a brand new construction, right? And so the first year you pay taxes on the

land. Second year, you pay taxes on the, you know, the first full year of the property being built, right? So then a tax is shot up from, I think it was around, they shot up about, geez, like $4,800. Just this year? Last year. This was last year. How come you didn't raise the rent? So we have a realtor that we're working with over there, right? The realtor, right? The realtor, recommended because of the properties around in the community to lower the rent because the first year was essentially $2,500. So then it all kind of made sense at that point. We were doing out of pocket $50 a month, right? Then the second year came around with the tenants. And then the realtor was saying to lower the rent just because all the properties around it, the rent went

down. So then that's when the property taxes shot up to $5,200, $500, $500, $500. Then that's when we went negative $400 something a month. All right. So the question is, did you get into this? How? to make a couple hundred bucks a month or did you get into this house to make more than that? We got into this house. Well, we moved over there because we liked a place and then work called me back into the office in Miami. And that's it. That's what I want to stop on. You did not buy this house as a rental property. You did not say, you know what, let's get into the rental game. Let's get into the landlord business. Let's go pick the perfect property for us to do that. You didn't say that. You defaulted to this because it was like, while we're moving, I guess we'll just kind of keep it.

Do you see why that's not a great plan for real estate? Correct. Correct. Yeah. So if you sell it now, are you underwater or can you make money? I will make about 15K on it. I'd jump on it because I just read an article a couple days ago. Tampa is one of the worst real estate markets in the country. Prices are dropping. Yeah, big time.

Got to jump on it. So I would get out now. Do you agree with that part? I'd take the 15 and be happy. Indeed. Because this is a headache gone and you walk away with no financial loss and you get to, you know, live and tell about it. Yeah. The longer you wait, that money could dwindle, so I would definitely.

Yeah, yeah. And we actually just, you know, the worst part of the timing is we just, not the worst part, but we just renewed the lease with the tenants. So we got, you know, 11 months to go with that. But obviously, you know, with, you know, contingency. upon the tenant's moving out or so on and so on and so forth you know we can potentially sell the house and you know i was just talking to my wife about it and we're young right i'm 30 she's 27 and zero credit card debts no car payments good we have we have seven months worth of savings you know um there is a a truck that i want to get rid of because that's like 580 bucks a month i just don't need

right now right uh we make a really decent living for living in miami um and it just that house is kind of causing not headache in the marriage or anything like that, just our sense of peace for us, right? Yeah. It's going negative every month. Yeah, and that's 400, not including CDD fees, garbage men, fees, ADP security. So you were just losing money, hand over fist? Yeah, monthly.

Exactly, yeah. Yeah, negative 730 is the exact amount every month. How long have you had this property and been renting it? We were there. I've been, we had it. We've had it so far three years. We lived in it 10 months. So you've been losing $730 a month for three years, give a take?

$730 the last fiscal year, the last 12 months. Oh my gosh. Yeah, for 2025. I mean, do you see where there's no profit there because you're only going to make $15,000 for the sale? That's the type of math you've got to be doing to understand what you're in the business for. Are you in it for making long haul on the property?

Are you trying to make something off the rents? There just wasn't a plan here when you failed a plan, you plan to fail. And I would roll my sleeves up with my realtor if I were you and I would walk this whole lease thing out, 11 months. Do you have any options? I'm just because I'm going to tell you something, the market in Tampa is going down. I don't know what it's going to look like six months from now or a year from now, but you've got 11 months. And so I would want the full picture of what every option and can we be ready. And then what do we have to do if we have no options, Jade, and 11 months?

months rolls around. What's our strategy? So I would get in control. So we're going to list this thing at eight months. You know, just don't let this thing happen to you, happen to this. And then one quick question, because I want to get it from a source of Florida resident. What is the status of the no property tax legislation or idea by DeSantis? Where is that stand? So that is still TBD. I know there's been a lot of hyped around DeSantis wanting to go ahead and eliminate property taxes, but a lot of folks are saying like how are they going to be able to fund schools. Right. So it's not active.

You know, I get all that. But I was just wanting to know where. Is it active legislation or is it just him throwing it out there? I mean, him throwing it out there. They are in the process of it though. It's not active yet. Gotcha. Okay.

Yeah. There's not active yet, but a decision will be made soon. All right. Yeah. Well, listen, man. I wish we had better news for you. I would see what your options are in that contract. Read the fine print.

See what your options. are if you have no options, have a game plan. So hopefully we move this house pretty quickly upon being able to sell it based on the lease situation there because you just don't want to be stuck with that. And Jade, this is a great review. We have a lot of new people coming in all the time. This is a great way to kind of do a review. Why do we tell people this story being example A to not be long-term landlords? Excuse me, long-distance. Long-distance. Well, I feel like the first part is what we kind of highlighted, which is a lot of people get into that long-distance landlord game, not by thoughtful choice of this is where I'd like to buy a property and be a

renter. It's, I used to live here. I got a job. I'm moving, or maybe you're in the military and you're hopping around. So it's just kind of like this default. Well, this seems convenient. And then you're, you're far away. It's a pain in the butt. If the person is not, you know, paying you're, you know, in this case, he wasn't, I mean, he was almost a state away, Tampa to Miami may as well be a state away. But it's very hard to manage things from long distance. And you did not pick a property based on mathematics, based on doing any sort of spread. You just kind of ended up that way. And nine times out of 10, those are the ones where they're causing the most amount of stress. They're causing the most amount of, you know, loss of money because they're not

covering it. And so it's just got to let it go. Simplify. A simple life, Ken. Yeah. And low risk, Right? Low risk. You know, you talk about the Florida real estate market. You know, it got overheated. It sure did. Before you buy something, you should be paying attention talking to those grizzled real estate veterans who've been.

They've been around. They may not look grizzled, but they got experience. In Florida, they're sunbeaten. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they know. They've been around. They've seen real estate cycles. You've got to know this stuff so that you don't put yourself in a higher-risk situation.

Because a lot of people go, well, I got the house. Let me just rent it. Now I've just made my portfolio a reality, and it's just not that simple.