Hi everyone, I recently took time off to get a second job to eliminate car payments and some debt prior to starting back finishing my degree. I have been renting for a while and was thinking of buying a home prior to starting classes again. I live in an apartment at this time, which we have out grown. Living in a small space has made it difficult to enjoy family members when they are in town, and as time has progressed me and my husband has acquired so many extra things to the point where we pay an extra $300 dollars a month in storages. My options are to buy a home or rent a home. In my area it is a great time to buy A home, it may even cost more to rent than to buy. I was thinking of buying because right now I have the income to purchase, my husband is also working and in school working on classes toward a higher degree in nursing. In the near future I will have to cut my work hours down to less than part time hours. Right now I am renting for over a $1000.00 dollars a month, I could buy a home and pay about $600 dollars a month for a mortage or less, I will also have to include other fees of insurance etc. There is no med school in my area, so I know I will have to relocate. The closest medical school is about 2 hours away from where I live. With a cheap mortage I was thinking it is possible to buy. If I got into my school of choice I figured me and my husband would just live apart and I would come home frequently. If the school was far away, perhaps he could move with me and we would have a mortage to pay and rent while I am in medical school. The University where I will be attending will has an agreement with my school of choice which makes my chances better at getting accepted. A mortage is a lot of responsibility, I just want to make sure I have considered all the ramifications prior to buying. I don’t want anything to affect me in a negative sense once I restart school, especially something that would not be easy to get out of. Have any of you had a mortage while attending pre-med or medical school with only one spouse working. Thanks for the feed back, I really appreciate it.
I understand the reasoning. My opinion is that if you intend to go to MedSchool, then DO NOT BUY.
- You will need a deposit that you may use toward your education and perhaps decrease the load of debt you will incur in MedSchool
- You will likely limit your options by owning a home. Many on this site got accepted away and it raised the issue of selling their house, which is not always obvious. Paradoxically, great time to buy, and yet bad time to sell.
3)A 600 Dollars mortgage will equate to about 1000 a month between insurance, taxes and I do not factor all the stuff that breaks down and other improvements necessary over time (I am laying down tiles now, cost = 4000). The carpet had to be changed.
So being where you are now, I would not buy. Perhaps think of a different place to stay, you are just you and your husband, so you can probably look out for a cheaper place and even save. Easier said than done.
Again, this is my point of view. I have a house, two kids and my wife has a full time permanent job. If it was not for the house, perhaps I’d consider moving. Now with the house, the cost and time to bring it up to a selling standard, I would likely have to defer a year if admitted. 1 year of practice down the road is a lot of money lost. My top choice is of course the nearest school. No being accepted there would raise many issues, and I am not even sure MedSchool would be possible for me. We’d have to crunch the numbers pretty hard.
So my opinion is do not buy. But this is my opinion.
Do not buy. There is one student in our class desperately trying to sell their house, because they+spouse ended up moving across the country, rather than receiving an acceptance at one of several state schools.
If you’re serious about med school just wait it out - you can rent houses if you must have one, but you do NOT need the headache.
I strongly concur DO NOT BUY.
In my 10 years with OPM, I have heard far too many stories of premeds, medical students, residents and attending physicians in real stress and turmoil of not being able to sell and/or cobbling together renters for a house.
For example, on member, OldManDave alluded to 8 interstate moves in the 15 or so years from premed and now thru 3 different attending positions. This does not include the minor moves of weeks or month for a clinical rotation to a distance site.
Med school, residency and early practice is a journeyman’s trade and life.
Do No Buy
Just the fact that I’m almost definitely going to have to move for med school, and then again for residency, and then again when I take a job as an attending, it just seems like a bad idea all around, even if I can afford it.
Do not buy. You are moving for med school and unless you are committed to being an absentee landlord do not put yourself through that misery. In reality you should be trying to get rid of stuff as much as possible. You will have to go back to “student mode” and not have very many things, the lighter the better. A mortgage is a huge anchor. Trust me I have one and am trying to get from under it so I can move I receive the fat envelope.
I have bought and sold 3 homes in my life. At this point, I would NEVER buy again. Home ownership only limited my school/career options. Once I sold my last house and was able to move, I got a promotion I had waited 10 years for. Looking at med schools all across New York State, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. I am SO HAPPY that I am not chained to a mortgage and will be able to move freely to the school that accepts me. For me, home ownership was a tremendous burden - repairs, upkeep, plowing, mowing,cleaning (1640 square ft. of house was a lot to clean). In 2008 I sold it all and pared down to what I could fit in a one bedroom apartment. I discovered that half the “stuff” I had were things I did not “need”. Nowadays my landlord does all the repairs, shovels the walk, mows the lawn, and it takes me 45 minutes to clean my whole house on Saturday morning as opposed to the HOURS of cleaning and mowing I used to do. Much more time to study. Personally, I am much, much happier than when I had all that “stuff”. And when the acceptance letter comes, I can go! Food for thought.
Thanks everyone for your prompt replies, there are some issues I did not consider until your I received your informative feedback. Thanks to you I have made my decision with ease with even more valuable information than I had before. It is so enlightening to know there is someone to turn to while on this aspiring journey. All of you has made this possible, whom that has taken the time to read posts and give honest feedback. Good luck to everyone trying to reach their educational/occupational goals. Thank You
Just had a coworker give me awesome news. She was given an interview to a PA program and it’s not the one she lives across the street from but one in California. She thanked me profusely because if she had bought her dream townhome (???) she would have been forced to sell and all those mortgages are underwater. Her friend, who didn’t take the advice was not accepted anywhere last year and is giving up her dream but she has her dream townhome (???)
Moral of the story:
Don’t confuse four walls and a roof for a dream.
To keep my “moral” in context my mom, an immigrant, had her dream to have a home. She rejects it. Now at 76 she wished her dream had instead been to become a nurse. That way she could have enjoyed her job and not slaved at a job to maintain a piece of property. Her dream was to have a home where we could be raised but 20 years later we left the home and all she has is the home. She owns plenty of property now but the one she regrets the most is our home because she feels chained to it.
It’s not that bad but I hope you get the point. A dream should be bigger than anything material because that comes and goes. Your dream of becoming a physician will afford you the opportunity to even have some community buy you a home…rural at least. =0)
Great advise.
I have been on a fence about a house for couple of years now. Initially when I started looking, I did not plan to go to medical school. I was just looking for a comfortable house to live in for a very long time.
So one day it all became clear that if I want to be a student again, the only way it can happend is if I am financially free.
Every now and then I get back to looking at the houses, but I try to focus on a larger picture – me moving for a medical school across the country. Then I hear co-workes and friends stressing out about new HVAC, roof, cutting grass, water damage, renovations, etc. And I count my blessings.
May be you should really look and try to figure out why you want a house in the first place. For me, I really wanted to have a garden, a backyard and a large kitchen. It took some time to find what I was looking for in a rental, but I was able to find a duplex with all the amenities, great neighbores and a very nice landlord. The best part is that my rental has my dream backyard with a creek, old trees and all kinds of birds, rabits, and ocasional deer. The owner even let me set up a composter and build a raised bed for a garden. Yes, my rent is not cheap, but it is still less than the ownership of a house when you add taxes, repairs, mowing the lawn, landscaping, and the risk of loss when you try to sell.
And beleive me, as a finance person and CPA, I will tell you that housing market is a huge scam and still very volatile. Prices are not going to rise any time soon and the interest rates will remain low for a long time. The main reason news contantly remind the consumer how the econimy is improving is to build consumer confidence. Well if the economy would be on such a fast truck, I do not need TV to tell me that. I will know first hand when my employer increases 401k match, give me bigger annual raise and larger bonus. Since none of the later ones are happening in reality, TV kicks in and tells us things they want us to beleive. Buyer beware ☺