I've been lurking around the forums quite a bit, soaking up all the knowledge I can and occasionally weighing in. After years of bemoaning how expensive the NoVa (just outside DC) area is, especially housing anywhere close to the metro trains, I finally had a light bulb go off...I have options!
A little bit of background: DH and I are in our mid 20s (getting closer to 30 than 20 now...when did that happen??). We've been renting in the NoVa area for almost 4 years. Each year, we think, "just one more year then we'll move somewhere else," but the money and potential for career progression is alluring and has kept us here thus far. Realistically, I could see us being here another ~5 years. We would both ideally like to move to either Richmond or Pittsburgh, but DH feels like he needs to be here a while longer to get a better footing in his field. In the next year, we will be discussing children, which means losing my income. Also, we do not currently own a car (public transit/walking for daily commutes & groceries, zipcar/trains/car rentals for trips to see family) and won't ride bikes (there are a lot of nuances behind this that I don't have time or inclination to get into...just take this as fact for now :) ).
So, in light of that, it doesn't look like we can afford a house in this area. We're pretty particular about location (not afraid of DIY, but limited experience means we should err on the side of something with smaller projects to tackle first), and that means most places start around 600k. Could definitely swing the mortgage with both of us working, but it's not an option on only one salary (and, to be honest, we've been talking about kids for two years, and I'm not willing to postpone that much longer...and the idea of being dependent on both salaries is not something that sits well with either of us). This has kind of led to three options:
1. Keep on keeping on. Stay in apartments, find a way to make a one bedroom work with a (or potentially multiple) kid since that's what is in our price range on one salary and continue to reduce living costs as much as possible.
2. Buy a condo in NoVa. Looking at between 200-300k for a condo in the area we want. I haven't looked enough to know what fees are, but I understand under $500 is pretty typical. I like this idea because it means we are "throwing away" less money on rent, and we would be done paying off the mortgage before any younglings arrived. I have a lot of reservations about this option, though. I don't like the idea of paying for the space and then still having the condo fees on top of that (it does make it easier to save, though, since the fees would be much less than what we are paying in rent now). Also, everything I have read seems to indicate that condos are much more difficult to be profitable with if you're not living there--when we move, it would be difficult to rent out and even more difficult to sell.
3. Buy a house somewhere cheaper and continue to rent. The idea with this is we would buy a house somewhere we want to move once DH feels sufficiently established in his career. Until we move, we could rent it out, providing a second source of income. Right now, it looks like we would probably purchase in the Richmond area. It has the advantage of being somewhere we would love to live and the prices are at a point where we could pay off any mortgage before younglings came along. The other (possible) advantage of this is that my in-laws still live in the area, and they may be amenable to managing the property for us (they currently have own rental property in the area) for some sort of fee (want to make sure it would be a good deal for everyone, but I'm not sure what the fee would be--they are stable enough that they don't need the money, but they did so much to help us get on our feet when we first got married that I have no issues tipping the scale in their favor). I'm not seeing many downsides to this option, although, I am by far most excited about this course of action and find it more difficult to be objective.
Are there other options I'm not considering? What would you do if you were in our shoes?