My SO and I moved out to a new city while she's in med school. We're currently in an apartment paying ~$1,300/mo (after utilities, etc...). However, the other day I realized 2-3 bed houses here cost 95-120k, which--from where I'm from--is mind blowing.
For the first time in my early 20's life, I'm seriously considering getting a house. But here's my problem, I have no idea what the math should look like to figure out whether or not it would be worth it. On the one hand, instead of "throwing away" ~$1300 a month, I'd be putting it toward a mortgage that I would be able to (partially) recoup after I sell.
On the other hand, what if I can't sell or the housing market crashes and since we're forced to move out I'm forced to sell at a huge loss. Not to mention that I'm sure there are many hidden cost of being a homeowner (what if the fridge breaks or a pipe bursts?).
How can I do some back-of-the-envelope math to determine whether this is an option I should be looking more into?
For the complete numbers: I make $2,000/paycheck after deductions and I usually spend ~$500/paycheck on things not apartment related (food, luxury, etc...). An example house in a nice area with amenities I'm looking for that I found by throwing darts at Zillow has a value of $106k and property tax of ~2.5%. By the time I buy this (sometime next year), I'll be able to put 20% down and I'll likely have a mortgage rate of around 4%1.
1. This is probably the number I'm least sure of. I have a very strong credit score, but I haven't seen any mortgage calculators/estimators that help you calculate this percent.