Investment property
My husband is active duty (24) and I work on base (22). We live in Havelock NC on base currently. With BAH we make about 80k a year. Way above the median for our area. We got pre approved end of June and been looking at houses since, 260k and under. We have 2 newer paid off cars so our monthly bills aren’t crazy. We have orders to move to PA end of 2028. We’re not in a desperate need to move right now but the idea was to always buy a rental at each duty station. After looking for so long we’ve learned that New Bern has crazy city taxes, for example a 225k house mortgage was 1750. And Havelock is notorious for an average 200-300$ a month water bill. We’re currently stuck on a house that’s right in the middle so it doesn’t have either of those things, it’s 260k with a 1800 mortgage before buying points. The house is 3 bed 2.5 bath very large new fenced in yard, new hvac, 1 car garage in a sought out neighborhood. It does need cosmetic updates inside but nothing crazy or has to be done. There’s a slightly bigger house in that neighborhood currently renting for 1900. But you have to consider rent will go up in 2 years but it’s still cutting it close. I definitely feel like this house is the best bang for our buck but I don’t know if it’s a good investment opportunity. We are handy but I’m not willing to deal with a huge project and it’s rare that a house does pop up in this in between spot. I also feel like we’re getting desperate bc we’ve been looking for so long but I dont want to make an emotional decision because like I said we dont even need to buy a house here at all. Our families keep saying the mortgage is too much and we wont find someone to rent for a price that will be making us a profit.
Just looking for advice 🙃 TIA