Sooo, really new to all of this, but trying to do all the research possible.
38, never thought about buying a house. Then 2 years ago a place across from my best friend (one of only very few of my friends who owns- most of them rent, can't afford/not interested to buy) became available for very cheap. I had no idea about buying a house. And of course no savings for this as a thruhiking, vagabonding, hippie musician weirdo. Did learn that even if I had money I couldn't buy until Jan 2020 at earliest due to being newly self-employed. Then another close friend had a lot of stress last summer, at age 65, when the place he'd rented for 15 years evicted him so they could rip it down and build condos. It took him 7 months to find a new place, and the new place is cramped and above his budget- he's really struggling. I don't want that to be me in 30 years.
I found out about a savings program called IDA that matches low-income people like me 2:1 up to $2k- ie, save $2k, they will give you $4k. There are also a bunch of first time home buyer programs that offer $, should be able to avoid closing costs, and get another $10-20k towards down payment at minimum. I also went to the intro NACA workshop a year ago, though they said bc of the self-employed thing it would take at least another year to qualify. My accounts are kinda a mess from all the bank bonus signups I do so uncertain I will go through the NACA process or not- I talked to some people and they said it's further really complicated if you are self-employed. This year AGI should be like $33k, will be probably $40ish in future. I'm saving 50% of income since Oct 2019 since I finally paid off last of biz startup expenses in the past 4 years.
In the meantime I started dating a guy who is amazing! But, he lives in the suburbs and my commute would 1. be longer 2. be more expensive, and require a car. I don't own a car, and where I work it's impossible to park one, so this would require driving a car 20-40 minutes (depending on traffic) to a public transit stop and then taking the train 20 more minutes and walking another 5-10. In general I loathe having a car and avoided having one most of my adult life. I mean, I'm a thruhiker.
So issue right now is trying to decide what I will do. I make a lot less money than my boyfriend and would be eligible for a lot more programs when applying without him. He bought in 2006 and his home value has gone down $30k, it never really occurred to him that he wouldn't just live there forever. Also he is actively looking for new jobs, finally after 8 months found a possibility, though it's also a 1-1.5 hr commute from either his house or my rental, and really just a stepping stone to get out of previous job, won't be permanent.
I feel a possible idea is to qualify/buy something affordable on my income, and then have less stress in moving in together (which we would already be doing except that the commute from each other's homes to works doesn't make sense at all right now). If we get married (which we are actively discussing) then we could decide what we wanted to do legally/financially, like have an option to buy into the house if I purchased it if he wanted to. I'm also ok with him just selling his house if he wanted to and investing that into his retirement accounts too, I made different choices than him in my 20s-30s (no regrets tho!). My idea would be to find something walkable to an efficient public transit (train, metro) that works for both of us.
I know I would save $ to just move to his place, he said he wouldn't charge me rent. But it would easily double my commute and make it more expensive as well- I just feel a total sense of dread and isolation about it (as an adult I've been a city girl, except on travels where I go into the wilderness. Can't walk or bike to anywhere from his house). I really broke down how I felt with commuting and house stuff a couple weeks ago when talking about M word and W word (I guess I hadn't been direct enough in previous months- we are only a year into the relationship anyway). He is coming around to the idea about maybe moving one day, though change is hard for him, and he's lost a lot of $ on the house (timing + not desirable location + too small for typical folks), and put in a lot of sweat equity.
Reading the article on MMM about "true cost of commuting" is what brought me to this site. I would love any feedback.
