Open Question: Buy with a 15 year mortgage, buy with a 30 year mortgage, or keep rent

[Administrator]

My fiancee and I are both 25, and looking to buy a house or a condo in our area since we're getting tired of renting.Here's the tough part; we're pretty sure that we'll stay here for the next 4-5 years due to her school and my work obligations. Beyond that, we don't know. We might decide to stay here, or we might move to another city. We also might decide to upgrade to a larger house if/when we start a family.I've taken a look at a few online calculators, and they all say that it makes more financial sense to buy than to rent over a 4-5 year period, but they all assume that the housing market will steadily (if slowly) increase over that time.If we buy, I'd love to go for a 15 year mortgage to prevent paying more interest than necessary, but a 30 year mortgage would free up some money each month to put away if we end up moving.Our credit history is good, but we don't have much in savings, although we're working on it.Any advice or considerations I haven't thought of?We're meeting with a mortgage broker next month to take a look at our finances to see what we can reasonably afford and what kind of loans we can qualify for. After that, we'll meet with a real estate agent to see what kind of property we can get for that. If we can't find anything we like that we can afford, then we'll keep renting, but at least we're looking.This would be our very first home, but I'm willing to put in considerable sweat equity into a summer fix up project. We'd be nowhere near the 20% down payment to avoid PMI.

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