ECL buyoff and starting level question

[SciChronic]

So assume the following:
1) a campaign is starting at ECL9
2) DM allows ECL buyoff
3) DM allows ECL buyoff during character creation (i.e.: picking a +1 race but assuming it was bought off during creation.

If i take a +2 race and take the first buyoff during creation costing 7k xp, do i still make my PC ECL9 (8 class levels +1 adjustment), or do i make them ECL8(7 class levels +1 adjustment, 1 level delayed due to buyoff)?

[Flickerdart]

If you really wanted to be pedantic about it, the correct way would be to figure out how much more XP your guy would earn after his level was bought off and he was a weaker character. So the actual starting character level would be somewhere between 7 and 8. Given that your DM is the one who's allowing buy-off before the game starts, he should be the one to adjudicate this.