House vs. Apartment

[MrsC]

All good points! I like the idea of renting for 6 months to see where we are at. I may look a little bit, but I don't think the month I have between graduation and the wedding is really enough to look hard for a house.

This is what we're doing and I'm glad we decided not to buy right away. We're renting for 6 months and if we like the area, we'll buy. I have learned so much by speaking to locals, like the builders not to buy from, what price range we should buy in so we can resell, that houses in one school district are impossible to sell etc. Hopefully we'll learn a lot more in the coming months. We've never owned and can't wait to have our own place but to me, having the confidence that we can sell when we need to is far more important than owning right away.

[Meenah]

My parents build a 4000 square foot house in Mississippi when I was in middle school

Where in Mississippi? I grew up there.

[SoonerTexan]

Where in Mississippi? I grew up there.

Brandon, near Jackson. Out in the boonies!

and Jenn Patel will back me up on this one! Unless you have some majorly compelling reason to buy a house, don't do it.

Jenn

Yep. We were stuck w/our house in Cleveland for a full year after moving here, and still ended up taking a loss. We were able to do it b/c my husband was finished with training -- but if you'd be moving at that point for residency -- it's a different ball of wax.

PLUS (and I don't mean to sound condescending) "sort of handy" doesn't really mean much unless you're really a jack of all trades. A burst pipe, a broken furnace (or a/c in TX), a broken dishwasher, washing machine, clogs, floods, roofs -- there are LOADS of things that are rather specialized to be fixing / maintaining and cost lots of $ to handle when you OWN the place. Yardwork is a whole new level of commitment. When you're renting, you're not only paying for the use of the space, but the luxury of calling the landlord to FIX ALL THAT STUFF. After the first few "issues" for a new homeowner, part of you longs for that guy to call. Our home here was only 2 years old when we bought it, but we've had a washing machine overflow on the 2nd story, soaking through all the way to the basement, our sump pump flickered during a heavy storm and our basement flooded, we've had pipes clog that dh tried to snake for over a day (and he is very handy) before we shelled out for a plumber, our garage door broke, our refrigerator (also 2 years old) broke, our A/C unit has a leak, a pipe in the basement was dripping and gathering water in the corner of the storage area, we've got one pipe that keeps freezing in the cold, we had a leak from the shower in the master bath .... and that list doesn't include anything we've done by choice. I won't even start to list the stuff we had to deal with / address on the 50 year old house (that had just been entirely re-done as a flip) we had in Cleveland.

Yes - fixing up/remodeling can be a lot of fun, but it's also a huge time suck AND money pit.

[v-girl]

You all are making me so happy I married someone who really is handy (and comes from a family of handy men). In our first 3 years, hubby's dad & uncle taught him to replace a toilet, then he did it by himself on the second toilet, his cousin taught him to replace a water heater, he installed phone jacks, etc. And he can install/fix a dishwasher, refrigerator, etc. I grew up with a single mom. She called the neighborhood maintenance guy to light the pilot light in our mobile home ever winter. LOL

[SoonerTexan]

Well, I'm convinced. No house, at least for a year, and probably not at all.

[Vishenka69]

I'm in the renting camp. I'm so glad we rented until we could afford to hire maintenance help. As much as we love our house, we still sorely miss the days when a call to the super would solve everything within an hour and for free.

[SoonerTexan]

Any thoughts on renting a house? I found some that are about the same price as apartments in the area

[DCJenn]

One word of advice about renting a house is to make sure that the lease SPELLS OUT IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL about what exactly you all are responsible for in terms of maintenance.

I had renters who were handy men and when the disposal broke, they went out bought a new one, installed it, sent me the bill and I deducted it off their rent.

The girls I have now can't even remember to change the furnace filter.

I specify that they have to cover 80% of the floors, that they are responsbile for replacing their own lightbulbs, I replace the appliance lightbulbs and filter, they are to replace the furnace filter (which they are to buy) monthly. I have an HVAC guy, a plumber and a handyman that I can call to do all of the other repairs. Luckily, the exterior maintenance is all provided by the HOA.

Jenn

[SuzySunshine]

I will start with an I don't know the area disclaimer but will then say that if you find a good house with good landlords then go for it. I also agree with Jenn, make sure everything is spelled out. We lived in a house, more like a cottage, for med school and LOVED it. It was so nice to not have shared walls and parking lots, etc. plus we had great landlords.

i vote rent. We are in the same boat. I keep adding up the thousands of dollars we are throwing away each month, but than I look at some of our friends that are stuck with their houses and have moved without selling or their new renters have trashed their places.

[NYCHoosier]

Re: House vs. Apartment

Is student housing an option? As you can imagine, DH and I don't have half a million (or $50k for a down payment) lying around that would enable us to buy in NYC...where we'd probably have to pay $1k/month in maintenance fees & taxes on top of a mortgage.
We got a studio in student housing, and though a bigger place would be nice, it has been awesome living in the same building complex as our friends. Not only is it easier to socialize, but we're able to help each other out with various things (eg I'm currently getting our friends' mail while they have a 21-day interview trip).
My commute can be rough, but I got used to it relatively quickly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ladymoreta]

They have student apartments, but they don't allow pets. I think they are pretty comparable in price to the surrounding apartments. They do have a gate guard, which would have been nice, but he would usually just open the gate regardless of who you were. The apartments were nice. Our friends who lived there had a one-bedroom, and it was a pretty good size.

[SoonerTexan]

Is student housing an option? As you can imagine, DH and I don't have half a million (or $50k for a down payment) lying around that would enable us to buy in NYC...where we'd probably have to pay $1k/month in maintenance fees & taxes on top of a mortgage.

LadyMoreta's right about the student apartments. They look nice, but they aren't any cheaper. And they are at max occupancy, so we couldn't see one until right before we moved in. They weren't bad, but I'm shying away from living right next to the medical school anyway. I just really don't like the area.

I have heard that there are some apartments in the area that offer discounts to students--we'll have to look into that. And some students basically qualified for subsidized housing, but were able to use it at really nice complexes. I'm not sure how that will work for us, though--I imagine we'd be disqualified from some of that because I'm working full time?

[DCJenn]

That depends on who is doing the subsidizing. We had friends who qualified for the "moderately priced dwelling unit" program in Montgomery County, MD when he was at USUHS getting his PhD and she worked full-time with me. It was a county run program.

Check out all of the options- there are usually funding options that no one talks about.

Jenn