Renting vs Buying a house scaries

My fiancé and I bought our 1st home in Tampa five years ago. We rented for a year before we decided to buy as we were just throwing money down the drain on something that we would never see any money back on. We were paying the same amount on our mortgage ( a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home) as we were on rent on just a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment. Of course, the % you put down makes a huge difference on your monthly payments on your mortgage. We put down 20%. We were paying 1,200 a month on our Tampa mortgage.

Im a huge advocate for buying (of course, if you have the means to). We recently sold our Tampa house over the summer and moved back to south Florida, where we bought another home. We also put 20% down to avoid PMI and our mortgage is currently about 3,000 a month for a 4/2 house. South Florida is expensive though so it’s what we expected.

I have about 50k in student loans. My fiancé has 0. His car is financed, mine is a lease. I don’t make a salary, as I’m finishing up mt masters. But he makes more than enough to make up for it. I strongly encourage saving to buy. If the market doesn’t fail, you are bound to make some sort of equity on your home. We made about 40k in equity from our Tampa house in almost 4 years.

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Be sure you actually qualify for the loan service forgiveness program. NPR did a whole article about 99% of applicants were denied. https://www.npr.org/2018/09/21/650508381/data-shows-99-of-applicants-for-student-loan-forgiveness-denied and https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/653853227/the-student-loan-whistleblower. The loan forgiveness doesn't actually happen until you make the 10 years of payments, but you can call the loan service provider to try and find out if your loans/work qualifies.

I agree with everyine who is buy vs rent...however, where we are (north east right outside Manhattan) the real estate market is crazy inflated. So I would def speak with a professional who could guide you and let you know if timing is right for purchase (not just for your personal finances but also market overall)
It took my husband and I (also killed w student loans etc) about 2 years of saving and not taking that European vacation to be able to finally buy. We have 2 toddlers which didnt make it easier. We purchased a couple of months before the crazineas started and judging by what our friends and fam go thru now to buy somethinf i say we got lucky and it made a huge difference
Hope this helps

View Quoted Comment We are both in the program now, we submit paperwork every year verifying qualifying employment. It’s very clear the type of loans that qualify and what payment plans qualify (I’m assuming that wasn’t so in 2007 when it was first implemented). It’s been an easy program to navigate since 2015 when I started.

I am on that Dave Ramsey plan, so those are the goals I have for buying a home. Have at least a 10% down payment (hopefully, 20%), make sure rent is not more than 25% of income, and have an emergency fund. He also suggests a 15 yr mortgage rather than 30 year. I understand that it can be difficult, but I am hoping it will all work out for us. We are saving a lot of money in the meantime by living in a cheap apartment. Luckily, we live in one of the areas where rent and houses are not priced high. I could not imagine living in CA or NY and following these goals.

We live in a HCOL area and bought a house before we got engaged....which looking back, could have backfired but it all worked out! The area we bought in is becoming a lot more trendy, and we approached it as an investment that we would re-sell at a decent profit in a few years.

We are both very fortunate to have mid-6 figure salaries and no debt at all, so we got a pretty low rate. We ended up putting only 8% down because we didn't want to tie up more cash than we needed to.

I've really enjoyed having a place that is really "ours", although, be prepared for the costs of home ownership. We've spent around $5K a year on random small issues (on top of property tax and insurance) so you need a good cash buffer.

Just wanted to thank everyone for weighing in on this discussion. It definitely helps to put things into perspective, and seems like a lot of people went the way of buying a home instead of renting! Guess the american dream isn't dead after all?

Sidenote- i was watching an episode of "Adam Ruins Everything" recently and they talked all about this conversation! (spoiler- they definitely leaned on the "renter" side benefit)

Here is a perspective with kids. We have 2 in childcare (had them back to back), that's about $2k a month. Both with student loans (him about $25k, me about 40k), one new car. We both make okay money for the area (over 150k).
In 2015 we opted to move from a trendy place in NYC $2200 a month in rent plus all utilities to a small apartment in NJ. We saved everything, didn't travel, and put everything we could away. In 2017 we bought our home in a very nice suburban town only 4 miles from NYC (where we work). We have a nice chunk of preprty and a house that's in great condition but that we have been slowly redoing room by room. For us, our childcare+student loan payment equals our mortgage. Taxes here are 10k a year....
For us it was the only option as we knew we were having a kid and then another one. There are added stressors of fixing things if they break or renovating but overall I never been happier with my decision. I'd be mindful of what the market is like when you buy. Our neighbors bought their house at the worst possible time in 2008 and whenever they sell they will likely still owe over $100k on their mortgage. Otherwise if you are smart about it this a great investment that kind of pays off daily (privacy, you are the boss, BBQs, space, ability to have friends over, having pets you wants etc).

My husband and I just bought our home in November. We had rented an apartment for a year, but even with the pet fees, rent, and extra charges we were paying almost $1000 on top of our everyday bills. We also had to live by guidelines, no more than 2 people staying overnight for more than 2 days, no painting the walls, could not use screws or bolts in the walls only nails, command strips, or approved wall hangers. Which meant we couldn't mount our flat screen TV to the wall like we wanted. . Also, while we lived there the apartment maintenance staff was poor. We didn't have a dishwasher for over a month, until my now husband (fiance at that time) decided to install it himself. We moved out of the apartment within a year, and they still tried to charge us extra fees for things that were in poor condition when we moved in. Had it not been for the pictures of before and after living there it could have ended up bad for us.

After we got married we decided to rent a house instead, hoping for a better outcome. It went well, since we were allowed to paint and didn't have the crazy guidelines. However, we ended up living in a house with mold, and not just any mold...black mold. It ruined so many of our personal belongings in the end that we decided no more renting. The next thing we move into will be our own.

We lived with my parents for a solid 6 months. During that time we focused on nothing but working on our debts, finances, and we also looked at loan consolidation options. Also started using the Dave Ramsey SmartDollar program, and it helped.

We do not have kids, but we have pets, 2 dogs and 2 cats. We now have a place to call our own and decorate how we want. It's been AMAZING and our house payment is $200 more than rent was in an apartment one-fourth the size. Plus we have something to call our own and build equity in.

Best Wishes to you and your husband in whatever you decide.

My partner and I are still debating it. It is something that seems like a very big decision to make especially for a new couple. We were thinking about buying and we even looked at potential houses but we started drafting up an estimate and it turned out that it was a lot higher than the costs of renting a house of the same area.

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Same here. We live in NYC and honestly it's hard to find a decent property in the area (we're not even talking housing here we are just looking for a decent enough apartment) and sometimes we end up in a situation where potential renting is cheaper then buying. The thing is we don't want to move from New York, and constantly renting is not really an option so we are looking for a middle ground with the financial situation and potential housing. We are using an online app to draft up the potential estimates and it was fairly accurate since my hubby is an accountant. It's useful if you are planning all your finances. ______________________________________________

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