For all your bridge falling nightmares, I give you our crumbling infrastructure.

“The American Society of Civil Engineers issues annual rankings of the state of the nation’s infrastructure and most of the grades are C and D,” said Michael O’Rourke, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

I suggest sitting down with a financial advisor. Then you could work out what is comfortable for you and what you can afford.

Seriously! There's no point in buying just to own a place if you end up losing money on it. And it just might not be the right time in the market you're in.

I had to turn in a rough draft of my last paper for school on Monday. I got an email from the prof today saying that it looked good and required no changes and she awarded full points for it.

This means I am done with my classes for the summer!! I have to turn in some forms on Tuesday, but I have no work left in them. Yay!!! I think these were the easiest 6 hours of grad level classes I've ever taken. Lots of work, but none of it terribly difficult.

I suggest sitting down with a financial advisor. Then you could work out what is comfortable for you and what you can afford.

Okay. How would one go about doing such a thing? I know I'm supposed to find someone without a vested interest in my actually buying (a bank wants my money whether or not I can afford it, right?).

a bank wants my money whether or not I can afford it, right?)

Not in today's market. With so many foreclosures, they want you to have a mortgage you won't default on. Ask friends/coworkers if they have a financial advisor they like. That would be a good start.

(I thought that they had all moved away?).

My parents moved but my brother and SIL, grandparents, and aunt/uncle still all live there. Plus, assorted family friends, church members, and so on. Like you, I have spent many hours running and biking on those paths - Minnesota rocks the parks and paths department. It's just weird when bad stuff happens close to home.

P-C, Joe and I have bought/sold two houses in the last five years. Each did make us money, although one was easy and one was very stressful. I do think that if you buy something new, you are much more likely to just have monthly mortgage costs, which makes the whole things less scary, IMO.

P-C, my brother is a FANTASTIC, very knowledgeable mortgage broker. I would be happy to send you his contact info. He'll talk everything through with you...and I'll tell him he better be good to you, or I'll kick his ass.

ChiKat is wise, Polter.

That said, some off the cuff advice. As a rule of thumb, if you can get your housing budget to ~25% of your gross income, you'll be doing well. In that you want to include rent/mortage payments, HOA fees, utilities, and an estimate of repairs/maintenance (if you are responsible for them). Since you are young you could go a little higher and assume that you will be earning more in the future, but that's a little risky, and you don't want to do that and also take one of those loans that has low payments for a while and then increases after 5 or 10 years. One or the other, maybe, but not both.

Owning property will decrease your tax load, remember, which should allow you to bring home more money.

I do think that if you buy something new, you are much more likely to just have monthly mortgage costs, which makes the whole things less scary, IMO.

Yeah, I'm thinking the new ones would also be cheaper or offer signing bonuses to offset the cost.

P-C, my brother is a FANTASTIC, very knowledgeable mortgage broker. I would be happy to send you his contact info. He'll talk everything through with you...and I'll tell him he better be good to you, or I'll kick his ass.

vw, that would be AWESOME. I'd really appreciate that. I keep going back and forth on this, because while I know it would be a good investment, I'm scared of dealing with all the stress and debt and such. Also, I really like the location I'm living in right now, geographically.

As a rule of thumb, if you can get your housing budget to ~25% of your gross income, you'll be doing well. In that you want to include rent/mortage payments, HOA fees, utilities, and an estimate of repairs/maintenance (if you are responsible for them).

Hm, thanks. It looks 25% of my gross income is about what I was guessing. It just freaks me out that it becomes so much more of my net income, and I would be putting much less into savings.

Since you are young you could go a little higher and assume that you will be earning more in the future, but that's a little risky, and you don't want to do that and also take one of those loans that has low payments for a while and then increases after 5 or 10 years. One or the other, maybe, but not both.

Well, the latter sounds decent, if I'm thinking of ditching it in five years anyway, right?

Owning property will decrease your tax load, remember, which should allow you to bring home more money.

I don't know how this works.

P-C, insent shortly.