Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Should I buy a home or rent in my situation?
You said 2 things that made me think you are one of the rare young couples barely making it but should attempt to buy rather than rent anyway.... Around my area, renting a place is about equivalent to just paying a monthly mortgage of a 30yr 3.5% APR of a home priced at around $250,500.  and... Our ideal price range would be $100,000-160,000 with a 25-30yr mortgage at 3.5 - 5.4% The other answers suggesting that you should rent and the reasons given were excellent ones but because of those 2 points you made, this tells me that you would be willing to live in a much much more basic house if you owned rather than rented.  Many renters rent rather than buy because they want a really nice place for their money and are willing to spend what it takes to get a nice place, but not you.  If you buy, you would be willing to take a place worth half or even less than half what you would get if you rented. That tells me you might accept a place that needs a little work.  Perhaps you and/or your fiancée have some skills needed to do a little of the work yourself.  I hope you decide to buy rather than rent if you can swing it, and instead of taking a 2nd job, spend all your spare time working on your little investment.  It's possible that by the time you're done fixing that house up some, through your own creative efforts or through the help you might get from your friends, you could end up with a $250,000 house, own it, and reap all the great benefits of owning rather than renting...or...better yet, sell that place for a nice profit, then turn around and buy the next one already fixed up with your newly acquired great credit to help you with the new mortgage, and ready for you to move in and enjoy.  It's how my wife and I got started (only we didn't have the benefit of historically low interest rates) and if we can do it, I believe you can too. Here are a couple tips that might help out....1) Don't spend a lot of money to fix the place...try to find the time to do the simpler tasks yourself.  If you don't have the skills, you can learn them on youtube or by picking the brains of all the great willing people working at your local discount home project superstore.  2)  Cosmetics go a long way towards increasing the value of a house.  a) needs paint and b) needs carpet but not a) major structural damage and b) needs roof. Regarding some of your other points... HOA, hopefully if you buy in a formal community, the HOA should be less than $200.  If it's more than that, it might be harder to do as I suggest. Closing Costs, probably more like 4 - 5% Taxes, monthly if included in mortgage, normally quarterly or semi-annually if not Utilities...you're budgeting quite high for that.  Depending on your area, you might only spend an average of $200/month, maybe even less. Insurance...see answer for taxes Regular maintenance, $1K a year might be about right but we better include irregular also, which comes up more often than you might think when owning, let's say $2 - $3 a year. Unexpected costs.  Expect the unexpected but if the place needs a new roof or something big like that, then you didn't do your homework before buying.