Hey, Louie. I actually stumbled on your post and created an account just to answer your question, since I can relate to your problem! I'm actually living in a house right now specifically with the intention of renting it out when I move (hopefully at the end of this year).
The answer to your question is: it depends. Do you want to eventually get into real estate investing and owning rental properties, or is this just a "I might rent it out in the future if the stars align" sort of thing? Because if you're excited about real estate, what you're talking about sounds like a great way to get started. Otherwise, I'd say find a place to rent.
The main reason I wanted to answer your question, though, is in case you do plan to go this route. If you're looking for a home to rent out in the future, you will specifically want to buy a rental property and not a personal residence. What I mean by this, is rather than looking for the home that gives you the greatest emotional connection (it's pretty, the rooms and floorplan appeal to me, oh I can put my desk here and decorate it such and such a way) you want to find the property that makes the most sense financially. 3bd/1ba homes are typically hard to rent out unless the target demographic in the area is college students or young professionals (families are attracted to 3/2s, 4/2s, 4/3s). Also make sure you can make a profit on it -- the basic idea is that your mortgage (and any other associated costs like insurance) should be 50% or less of the market rental rate (so if your mortgage, taxes, insurance, etc. is $500/mo. you want to make sure you can successfully rent it at $1000 or more, which you can do by checking what other comparable properties in the area are renting for). A good rule of thumb is to try to buy a property such that the monthly rental rate is 1% or greater of the total purchase price (a $100,000 house should rent for $1,000 per month) although that doesn't necessarily make it a good deal (especially if you need to get PMI, which you probably would with 3.5% down).
If you're actually excited about real estate investing, I'd suggest doing a lot of research first. Biggerpockets.com is a fantastic resource, and it's where I've learned most of what I know (the podcasts are amazing). Ken McElroy's book (The ABCs of Real Estate Investing) is great too; he lays out step by step how to do the math to make sure a deal is a good one (and he's Robert Kiyosaki's main real estate investing partner, so he knows his stuff).