Financial Guru Begs 20-Year-Old Man NOT to Invest in Real Estate and Reveals Why: ‘It’s Like Walking Right Into a Razor Blade’

Renowned financial guru Dave Ramsey told a 20-year-old man that he was “too broke” to buy an investment property.

Cesar, a 20-year-old aspiring landlord from Mobile, Alabama, called into The Ramsey Show on July 15 to ask the debt-free owner what he thought about buying an investment property with his uncle as a co-signer on the loan.

“You’re walking right up to a razor blade, sir, and I’m begging you not to buy this house,” Ramsey, 63, told the man. “You’re too broke to buy a house.”

Cesar told Ramsey and his co-host John Delony that he discovered that “being a landlord isn’t as hard as I thought” and that he’s decided it’s his dream job.

Cesar said he can’t get another VA loan because he already received one and that he needs his uncle, who lives out of state and is disabled, to co-sign an FHA loan with 7 percent ARP so he can buy the $300,000 property he has in mind.

Cesar, a 20-year-old potential landlord from Mobile, Alabama, asked Dave Ramsey (pictured) if he should buy a $300,000 house with his uncle as a cosigner because he couldn’t get a second VA loan after taking one out six months ago.

“My uncle and I divide everything in the house,” he told Ramsey.

Cesar can’t get a second VA loan because he took one out six months ago, and it doesn’t allow him to have two mortgages, he claims.

Ramsey bluntly told Cesar that he was “too broke to buy a house” and strongly encouraged the man to abandon his plans.

The financial guru then told Cesar a personal story about how he had similar dreams in his 20s and took out millions in loans from a bank to flip houses. One of the banks he was working with was sold and he suddenly had to cough up over a million dollars in 90 days.

“The next two and a half years of my life I lost everything I owned, was sued, had my house foreclosed on and eventually, with a newborn baby, a toddler and a marriage hanging by a thread, I was bankrupt,” he told the young man.

“I never borrowed money again and I never took on a co-signer again, because those two things got me into a lot of trouble,” he continued.

“You’re walking right into a razor, sir, and I’m begging you not to buy this house,” Ramsey, 63, told the unidentified man. “You’re too broke to buy a house.” It’s not known whether Cesar took out the loan and bought the house.

“And everyone I knew who was in real estate like you, and all my friends who were in that industry, were also broke. The only ones who survived were the ones who got out of debt.”

He went on to say that being a landlord does not generate passive income, especially if the tenants do not pay.

“Real estate is not passive at all, it’s very active,” he warned. “I love real estate and I own a lot of it, I’d love it if you owned a lot of it, but I’d also love it if you avoided a nightmare.”

Ramsey then admitted to Cesar that he didn’t think he could stop him from doing it because it seemed like he was “all for it.”

“You’re living on the edge,” he said. “You don’t even know it, you don’t even feel it, you didn’t estimate the risk you were taking, you took far more risk than your heart could handle.

“Just take your time.”

He told Cesar to “be the turtle” and “take it easy.”

Ramsey’s co-host warned Cesar that if he didn’t get the money himself, it could have repercussions for his uncle and his entire family would be involved in the search for the money.

“Now you can’t go to Thanksgiving, you can’t go to Christmas,” he said. “Nobody cares when you get stars in your eyes, man.”

Ramsey then said to Cesar, “Go take a cold shower, son, you’re trespassing.”

Ramsey did not reveal what Cesar ultimately did.