Hello, I have been reading the MMM posts for a while now, but never really looked at the forum. There is a ton of information here!
My husband and I are currently renting, and are tired of throwing money away. We would like to buy a house, and have enough savings to pay cash for a cheap house (the idea we had was to find a $50K foreclosure, there are a few around here) and make the needed repairs. Of course it depends what the condition of the house is, and while I really like the idea of doing repairs myself, I have zero experience at this point, so would need to learn everything... So we may end up buying something with less repairs but a bit more expensive. But the goal is to pay cash, and still have enough savings for repairs, future child (hopefully in the near future), medical bills, etc.
Here is the thing. I am not from the USA and we are not planning on spending our whole life here. At this point we do not know when we would leave, but it could be in 3 years or in 10 years.
Everybody always says that you shouldn't buy a house if you aren't going to stay in it for at least 5 years, because of the associated costs. But people who say that always assume you will buy with a mortgage. If one pays cash, does the same rule apply?
Then I started thinking that when we leave, if that is in the near future, we could keep it but rent it. Of course, since we wouldn't live in this country anymore, we would need a property manager. From what I read, they take about 10-15%, although it depends on the property manager.
Obviously, it would depend on where the house is located, what its rental potential is, how much rehabbing needs to be done, ...
Would it even be worth it? Is this one of these ideas that sounds really good in my mind, but once in real life, after adding property taxes, closing costs, insurance, maintenance, then later property management costs, more maintenance, we will just end up wasting money?
My husband's view is that even if we buy something, live in it a few years then sell it, we would end up wasting less money than what our current rent would have cost us for that number of years. But I doubt it is that simple.
Any advice would be very appreciated!