Assuming you are following along with this series, you’ve read or listened through the buy or rent discussion, as well as that on leverage, and you’ve decided buying a home is a good decision for your financial future. Now what? You have followed all the steps in the planning process to buy a home and you have now found the home you want to buy.
Leverage is one of those financial words that gets thrown around a lot that most people don’t really seem to understand. People say things like “I’m over leveraged” or “leveraged to the hilt”. We more commonly understand physical leverage such as a teeter-totter or using a stick and a fulcrum point we understand how to physically move things. We talk about “leveraging our relationships” or contacts or followers.
Throughout the history of humankind, bartering, or trading goods and services, has existed. As early as 9000 BC there is evidence that the ancient Egyptians engaged in bartering, often with livestock or crops. Bartering was an effective system for exchanging things deemed of equal value, even though those values were negotiable.
