My wife and I live in a 1-BR apartment currently, but are looking to move in summer to a 2-3 BR apartment. Currently, our rent is about $800 but going up another $40/month, and most places in the 2/3 BR range in our town run $750-1000 pretty consistently. We want a bit more space as we both have hobbies which fit poorly in our single living room/office area. And have tentative baby plans in the next few years, too.
Previously we were not considering houses because:
- The type of "we can see ourselves staying here for 20 years" places are $250k+ in this area, more than we can/want to afford now
- We are not sure we will be in the area more than 2/3 years (we will have a better idea of this continuously throughout spring)
However, through our search we've seen there are a reasonable number of houses in the $120k-$150k range that sell around here, too, which would be comparable to what we want to rent (like a 3BR/1BA house, 2BR/1BA, etc). The
NYT rent/buy calculator suggests that when comparing a $130k house vs renting two years a $927 rent as the "breakeven" point. Three years goes to $745. Four is $645. All those numbers are close to or lower than what we expect to pay in rent.
It is making me look into buying a small house that would be more than sufficient for many years instead of renting. Even if we move in ~2-3 years we would still be close to breaking even on a $130k place, apparently, and obviously the return gets better the longer we stay.
I'm curious what other folks would do in a situation like this or thoughts you might have. We weren't thinking about this option at all until stumbling on a house we would absolutely be interested in buying in that price range.
