Rent or Buy?

[rent or buy]

I received a faculty position and will move to the new location over the summer. Just wanted to hear about others' experiences regarding housing. Is it better to live in the area and rent a little while before buying or buy a home? What are people's experiences buying immediately? Thanks for your feedback.

[rent unless]

I recently considered this, and ended up choosing to buy. I think most people do not.

Things to consider not in favor of buying:

1) down payment.

2) if you're in a big city, where would you want to live?

3) if you have any idea you might want to go back on the job market in 2-3 years, you probably won't get your sunk costs back

4) it can take several months to close on a house, during which time you will be renting anyway. Why not take a full year and scout the place out/decide if you want to stay?

5) Can't really start the process early since lenders will count the cost of your existing rent against your income when calculating how much they can lend.

Factors in favor of buying

1) low low mortgage rates

2) low(ish) housing prices

3) if moving multiple times is emotionally costly to you (say you have some small kids, for example)

4) all the ordinary benefits of homeownership which typically kick in after a few years

Personally, I found the NY Times calculator for rent vs. buy useful also. www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calculator.html

5) if you know the area, where you want to live, and are pretty sure you will stay for a while, then why not start accumulating equity?

A good place to start is, of course, to figure out the relative cost of renting and buying. In some markets, renting seems to be better, in others, buying. If you want to see properties, I recommend contacting an agent and seeing if they can get you access to this site: listingbook.com/home/. It's not the same as looking at things in person, but looking at 50-100 listings (it's a slightly better tool than Zillow, I find, and has some really nice search features) should give you a good idea of what is available at your price point.