Commuting is great if you want to live somewhere you love.

 

Depends on your work situation. I bought a house when I was 21, and I'm 22 now. I don't have a full-time flying job currently, but I work within aviation making over $25K a year. My house payment is only $590/month for a 1300 sq/ft home. That's the same price as a 1 bedroom apartment around here, and I have a long term roommate so I pay close to nil for the house.

Granted, if I ever get a job with a regional I will have to commute. Unless, I can rent the house out. And that's a big if. So long as I retain a roommate, I can afford to live decently while making first year regional pay. Currently, I can pay the all the bills if I was living alone which is another big factor to consider.

If you have stability at your job, it really is a great time to buy with home prices and interest rates so low. Also, whatever you commuting or in base situation is, plan for the worse and expect to commute and be stuck with the home.

From my experience in the Phoenix area, there are very few homes out there that will be granted an FHA loan approval. Most of them are missing stoves, have exposed wires, or a plethora of other things that will not qualify. And, most of the inventory is going to be a short sale which is highly volatile. I bought a foreclosure through a mortgage broker and real estate agent that helped my manager buy his last two homes. Knowing good people that are referenced to you will likely make the entire process much smoother. It was in my case at least.

 

An f/o at the regional I'm at, recently told me that he asked Capt's the greatest mistake they made when they upgraded. And the most common answer was buying "too big a house". Don't know if they meant square footage or mortgage or upkeep or all of the above. I know my next home will be smaller and hopefully on more land for a garden.

 

Respectfully, I would point out that home ownership, in the truest sense of the term, does not involve house payments.

I would write out a plan of short-term and long-term goals. If your long-term goals involve the possibility of one or more moves, I would wait on the house. If you think you may be in one location for any length of time, I would consider purchasing a home.

Though the sale of a house can produce a profit, I would purchase a house because it fulfills a basic need - shelter. And that would include purchasing what fits your needs as well as your current financial situation.

Hope this helps.

 

As soon as I get to my career gig, which I know can change overnight but you can't keep putting it off if its something you want to do. I would make sure you live somewhere to call home for five years...and not have a commute from hell. Don't spend outside your means or what you think you can afford in the future.

 

[QUOTE=Kelly Brackett;1296684]Respectfully, I would point out that home ownership, in the truest sense of the term, does not involve house payments.

You never own your house, just stop paying your property taxes and see who it belongs to.

 

A contrarian theory holds that the value of home ownership has been overestimated:

Benefits of homeownership challenged - Los Angeles Times

Homeownership may be for the few, not the many - USATODAY.com

 

[QUOTE=oldschool;1298550]O.K., I'll rephrase it. If you have no mortgage then you own the house and not the bank. But if your house is paid for you should be able to cover the taxes. In my neck of the woods, my property taxes (at the current rate) are less than two mortgage payments. So, if my mortgage is paid for I can easily put away six years worth of property taxes in one year by saving what I would have sent to the bank.

 

The titles of the articles are a little misleading. It sounds more like mortgage ownership instead of home ownership. True, some fall on hard times and have trouble making payments. Others bite off more than they can chew, in which case it would make more sense for them to rent instead of buy.

 

If you can buy with little money down, and your payment is less than what rent would be, you are probably better off buying. If you move, you just turn it into an investment property and pocket the difference between rent and your mortgage. You can use that difference to qualify for a mortgage payment on a house in another city in most cases.