Hi y'all, long time reader, first time poster. I'm hoping to get some advice from this awesome community on an interesting issue-- saving for a house down payment over one year.
Context: my partner and I have gone through some huge transitions in the last 8 months. We got married, moved from the super-expensive CA Bay Area to the super-expensive Los Angeles area, and started new jobs. We will be moving again in fall 2017 to a small, rural college town where the cost of living is thankfully much lower, and we are hoping to buy a house. The real estate market is very steady in this area due to the presence of the university, so we are thinking of buying a condo or townhouse near the university and keeping it as a rental property if/when we move to something bigger (we have no kids but are planning to start a family in 3-5 years).
We're planning to save $40-60k for a downpayment over the next year, but we're concerned about liquidity. We have $15k right now scattered around in various savings accounts from before we got married, and our savings rate is about $3k per month right now (in addition to maxing out our retirement accounts). We could dump this into a savings account and hit the middle range of our target pretty easily, but I'm hoping there is a better way. We've considered money market funds, but I am worried about liquidity since we will be continuously contributing to this fund over the next year. I'm thinking a high-yield savings account might be better for us than a money-market fund, but if you have any ideas (or recommendations for specific funds or accounts), I'd be very glad to hear them!