conversation: User (PookeyBear13): "23 y.o Male.  Living at home hoping to move out soon.  Have about 40k in bank and near perfect credit score.  Only payment i have is a car payment around $195 a month but company helps with that.  Should I rent or look for a decent foreclosure and rent out a room or two to friends? Any advice would be great! Please let me know if you need more details! \n\nEdit for more details: No i have no debt, yes my job is secure.  i make about 42k a year pre taxes.  And yes my only expense right now is my car because my company picks a lot of things up for me i.e. all insurance, gas, car maintenance  etc..  Besides the normal misc purchases like food and beer every once in a while that is about it.  "
  Self: "Why do you want to buy a home?"
  User (PookeyBear13): "i just see it as a better investment in the long run over time.  That way i can hopefully get some money back compared to renting where i wont see a cent of it ever again.  \n\nAlso, i think find a foreclosing house is a good idea and hopefully rent out a couple rooms to take some pressure off the mortgage. Good idea or bad?  "
  emuporium (emuporium): "Make sure that you are careful not to budget with the assumption that you will always have roommate(s) contributing $X. You should be able to make payments on the house completely alone, roommates should just be a bonus.\n\nAlso consider the money you are "throwing away" into a house. Any interest paid (and there will be a lot at the start) is gone for the most part. Any maintenance and repairs are lost. Spending $10k on a new roof won't increase the resale amount by that much.\n\nWhat kind of price ranges will you be looking in? And how do those houses look in your area?\n\nI would advise you rent but more importantly, if you start leaning towards buying just make sure you know what you'll be getting in to. Don't think of renting as the "lesser" option."
  