Architectural Designs

Is it smarter to buy a small house instead of renting an apartment in college? ?

My fiancée and I will be (hopefully) married when we enter college as freshmen, and want to buy a house and sell it after the 6 or so years we plan to live there. Her parents would co-sign the mortgage. Does this sound manageable for two (driven + committed) freshmen? Well, our marriage will not be recognized in Florida where we are going to attend college. Yes, we are both females.. Not that it should matter.

Public Comments

1. yes
2. Well im my opinion yes becasue all that money your going to be paying for rent monthly, you could just buy a house. Understand what i mean. so i just figure is would be fine to just purchase a house instead.
3. why would you buy a house when your going to move once you graduate anyways?
4. well for any university its reccomended to spend first yr in the dorm. A house is only nice and affordable if you have 3-5 people living in it. I would research apartments or townhouses more.
5. Investing in real estate is always a good idea. With home ownership, comes the daunting responsibility of upkeep, maintenance and perhaps improvement. Generally, you would be able to sell it in five or six years and turn a profit to re-invest in a new home elsewhere. Whether it is "manageable" is between you and your fiance.
6. absolutely
7. I have known students to this and make out better than dealing with absent landlords and rising rents. And you can get out of dorm life if you are married. They have exceptions and being married is one of them.
8. No. Rent. Although the housing market is down, off campus housing always has a steady demand, so you won't see a great shift or relief in price. Also, though you are committed now, college brings a lot of challenges to a relationship. God forbid, you guys may split up and a shared property would be one giant headache. I suggest renting for the first year, and if you guys manage to deal with college successfully, then think about possibly making a purchase.
9. If the payment is about the same as rent it would be good. You will have a tax write off then. But watch out. Prices are still falling in California.
10. I wouldn't. For better or for worse, college is one of the most turbulent time in a person's life - you may switch colleges, you may break up, one of you may decide that living together is cramping your style ... and then there is the possibility that you become pregnant! That, plus today's incredibly volatile market would make me stay away. I just went through this 3 years ago when my spouse tried to convince me to buy a condo while in residency. And then we decided to switch medical residencies (and move to another state). Can you imagine how much money we'd be out if we had bought that condo? Instead, we were only on the hook for the rent, and we helped the landlord find a new renter, so we only lost about a month's worth. Purely financially, with a relatively stable market and absolute certainty that you are going to stay put ... then MAYBE. However, even with those things, you're unlikely to make a ton of money in 6 years - these are not the markets of the 80s and 90s. In the last 20 years, I have YET to find a property where the rent on it would have been anywhere near the mortgage on it. "Why rent when you can own" is very easy to dispute, at least in the recent market: Equity costs money. Right now, we're receiving LESS THAN HALF our mortgage payment for the house we do own in rent from our tenants while we're off doing residencies. DON'T DO IT!
11. It's possible to get a good deal on a small house right now. If you plan on selling it though, check out the neighborhood and visualize how it would be in the years to come. Pick an area that is beginning to see some development activity or has location advantages.
12. "Well, our marriage will not be recognized in Florida where we are going to attend college." Unless you are gay, I have no idea what you are talking about....