Quite interesting concept of supporting home ownership in Finland. I guess the subsidized loan changes the picture a bit pro buying.
To be honest, in your case I would draft an excel spreadsheet with a scenario comparison. I'm a rather data-driven person, so that has worked for me well in the past:
- 4 options (buy home in small city, buy home in big city, rent in small city, rent in big city).
- Then I would add in all the financial considerations per month to end up with a mock budget for each situation incl. your income, study subsidy, rent or mortgage, approx. tax refund for mortgage payments, as well as other housing related cost (you would still need to pay utilities and I guess something like HOA fees - fees for the homeowners association of your apartment block. In the end, you would come up with a monthly surplus/deficit for each of the scenarios, helping you to decide the financial matters of the housing situation.
- Additionally, I would include the mortgage balance at the end of your approx. study terms.
- Next to the financial consideration, I would also add qualitative factors that the different options would have: e.g., closeness to university/short commute, closeness to friends/social activities etc., responsibility for the apartment, tied up capital etc.
The scenarios don't need to be tied to a specific offer, just need to be somewhat close to what is available in the market realisticalyl right now,
With these four scenarios, you would have a good overview of the different options and I guess in the process of compiling it, certain preferences will already emerge.
If you want, you can also post a summarized version here and a few people from the forum can chime in on the financial side of the scenario analysis.
Seems like a lot of work, but buying a flat is also quite a big decisions - especially for someone in your age.