Buy or rent house after residency

[Tiburon]

What do most people do after residency, buy or rent a house?

Ideally, I want to live in a small, inexpensive house for 3-4 years, and then upgrade to a bigger house (not extravagent, but nice and a bit bigger) that I'll live in with my wife and kids for a long time. I'll probably have 2 kids by the end of residency, and finish end up with 3 total.

Just can't figure out if I want to rent or buy after residency for that 3-4 year period while I save up enough for a down payment for a larger house.

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[xf3rn4nd3sx]

What do most people do after residency, buy or rent a house?

Ideally, I want to live in a small, inexpensive house for 3-4 years, and then upgrade to a bigger house (not extravagent, but nice and a bit bigger) that I'll live in with my wife and kids for a long time. I'll probably have 2 kids by the end of residency, and finish end up with 3 total.

Just can't figure out if I want to rent or buy after residency for that 3-4 year period while I save up enough for a down payment for a larger house.

I would rent for a couple years, save for a hefty down payment, and then buy the house you want. Things could change in the first couple years and you might end up wanting to move elsewhere. Whether this happens or not, you don't want to be stuck with a home you can't sell.

 

[TexasPhysician]

Location dependent. No easy answer.

 

[EM_Rebuilder]

I would rent for a couple years, save for a hefty down payment, and then buy the house you want. Things could change in the first couple years and you might end up wanting to move elsewhere. Whether this happens or not, you don't want to be stuck with a home you can't sell.

Sage advice above...

I bought a home when I started medical school.. did minor repairs, sold in 4 years and made around 30k! Obviously I went into residency wanting to buy a house. Found a great 'by owner' deal needing some minor updating. Did the updating, looking for a profit....well.. I lost 40K to finally dump it as I moved 1000K+ miles... Had one person look in 8 months of selling it and I was not letting them get away.

I moved back to the place where I went to medical school and was 99.9% certain we were taking up roots so we did buy. I was fortunate to have moonlit and paid the downpayment without issue.

If you are going to an unknown area or an unknown 'group' of colleagues.. I would NOT buy a house... and IF you do, buy something cheap. Its MUCH easier to 'dump' a 100K standard type home than an upper end 500K+ home. Also, stay away from physician loans. You can save for a downpayment the year or two while you rent, then purchase a house. By then, you know what area, schools, etc plus you know if you are going to stay put...

 

[MidwestDoc25]

If you are going to an unknown area or an unknown 'group' of colleagues.. I would NOT buy a house... You can save for a downpayment the year or two while you rent, then purchase a house. By then, you know what area, schools, etc plus you know if you are going to stay put...

That's exactly what we did. We ended up renting for about a year and a half while saving for a down payment and making sure it was where we wanted to be. There's absolutely nothing wrong with renting for a while.