I was resistant to buying a house here in Pennsylvania, but my wife's from Sydney, Australia, and was gobsmacked by how inexpensive real estate is here. By 26,

I was resistant to buying a house here in Pennsylvania, but my wife's from Sydney, Australia, and was gobsmacked by how inexpensive real estate is here. By 26, we had bought a small house in the Philadelphia suburbs about three blocks from a train station and renovated it over the course of a few years. We were able to purchase a larger house in Philadelphia proper, and rented out the house in the suburbs - which covered the price of that house's mortgage and subsidized the newer house's mortgage. Aggressively paying down the first house, it's now paid off, and is just straight income, and we're more than halfway done paying off the mortgage on this house. This year, we actually dumped our investment account for a sizeable property in an amazing spot (on the waterfront, where the historic district meets the trendy hipster district), with commercial space on the first floor, an apartment on the second floor, and we'll be financing the expansion to a third floor by selling off the other two houses we have. I'll be living in a new-construction home above a performing arts space that I own outright, paid for by a second floor apartment I'll be renting out, in a high density, urban environment - because my wife and I bought a house when we were 26.