I'm currently in the process of being kicked out of my apartment by the city, which would have been completely prevented if my landlord had been a little more honest with us.
Here are my two housing options:
1) A nice three bedroom, 1 bath apartment, rented by a seemingly honest guy who just bought a house in the suburbs about 20 minutes away. Rent is $1200/mo and includes trash pickup (~$30/mo) and water.
2)I found a 4bedroom, 1 bath house for sale, in a slightly better neighborhood. The roof, basement, and construction all seems okay. The exterior is all in very good shape. However, it's being sold AS IS, including the 40 years of accumulated stuff (of next to no value) the prior occupants left behind. Carpeting would probably have to be removed from most of the rooms, and the hardwood floors underneath restored, the kitchen needs some kind of new flooring, and eventually the outdated stove and furnace would need to be replaced. Unfortunately my savings aren't really ready for this, so I can only comfortably afford a 5% down payment, which gives monthly payments for the loan (including taxes, mortgage insurance, and homeowners insurance) to be about $1150 per month. I'm relatively handy and could do all the flooring work myself.
However, there's a small, chance I'll move away in 1-2 years. I would guess that market rent is about $1600 a month for the fixed up version of the house, with a few small improvements that would need to be done in order to get Certificate of Occupancy including the 4th bedroom, otherwise it would only be 1200-1300.
Will someone please provide a facepunch to convince me to not buy the house?