Buying A Home
Stephanie2167
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Military family: To buy or to rent
My husband is in the military and we are originally from Southern California. We are currently in Texas and will have been here a year this summer. We are currently renting and don't love the house we are in. So we've been looking at rentals but are also toying with the idea of purchasing. We've never boiught a home before so we keep talking ourselves out of it. WE're just so scared of making the wrong decision. But we feel like our mortgage would be less than what we pay for rent plus we could possibly make some money since his housing allowance is more than our current rent.
We're looking at houses in the $175k range where in Southern California our friends are buying $500k 1200sf houses that need work.
I need your advice on whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. We plan to be here another 3 years with the possibility of staying for another tour. And rentals go super fast here so we could always rent it out after we leave.
Re: Military family: To buy or to rent
Save the extra housing allowance . Pay off all debt if you have it. Build a good 6-8 months expenses for an emergency fund.
Do you have a good 20% down? Money saved for closing costs, moving costs, start up utility deposits, funds for additional furniture/appliances and yard items along with tools/ladders/lawn equipment etc?
Now do you still have that emergency fund in place because you will need it when you have a house and the AC breaks, the dryer dies and the roof leaks.
Remember when you sell there are selling costs that will need to be paid.
Much easier to find a different rental you like better -- what if after living in your new home you find you do not like the neighborhood etc, the schools etc?
If you can guarantee at least another 5 years - maybe you would break even, but be prepared to bring money to the table at closing when you sell.
When DH was in the military we rented and saved as much as possible during those years.
If you are not sure - then don't do it.
Although I agree with the other PPs that you shouldn't buy a house unless you are planning to stay in it for a minimum of 5 years, I did want to give some advice on first-time home buyer nervousness for yourselves and anyone else being held back by that.
I personally should have bought a home YEARS before I did. It was really just fear that held me back. One thing I did that really allayed those fears is I took a night time, one-week class about all the pieces involved in buying a house. For example, one night there would be a presentation from an actual lender and another night would be a presentation from a title attorney, etc. But the classes were purely informative, not sales oriented at all. I learned so much more than I had ever expected and was much more confident in what to expect and how the whole process worked after that.
They also had a home inspector and an home insurance agent who talked with us. I was able to immediately knock houses off my list, just by looking at them, from the advice both of those people gave.