(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.

PC, do you think you'd really live there for five years? If you think you might move out of town in two, then it might not be as likely to make you enough money to be worth it. But five, you're probably fine.

Yay bike for juliana. YAY baby heartbeat for Stephanie! There was some other yay in there, but I forget it. BOO Sparky's employers.

Yay Stephanie!

PC, do you think you'd really live there for five years? If you think you might move out of town in two, then it might not be as likely to make you enough money to be worth it. But five, you're probably fine.

Yeah, that's the other big issue. I'm much more confident about being here for two or three years at least. I like the area, though, and could find another job here pretty easily if I needed to, I think. But I don't know. Maybe I'd feel stupid if I do stay for five years and hadn't done it.

Also P-C consider that nationwide we are at the peak of a deflating real estate bubble. Of course real estate is a very local thing; so maybe your area is immune. Also even if there is downturn, owning property tends to make money in the long run. Still - take into consideration; it really is not a good idea to buy in an area you are likely to move from. Even without the bubble as was said above you need to stay at least five years to get your upfront costs back; could be longer if there is a downturn.

I have no faith in any of our bridges, and hate that I have to travel over one on a regular basis. Well, that's not true. I-90 is actually new enough that I think it's okay. 520 is, however, not, and it wouldn't take a huge quake to kill it. A sudden major windstorm would be enough.

Also, I avoid the Viaduct like the plague, and have been scared of it since 1989 and the SF quake.

I wouldn't buy anywhere as a starter right now. I'd only buy if you plan on being in a place for at least a decade.