My husband and I our looking to buy our first home and would love any advise!

[Benjamin I Singer]

Good afternoon all! My name is Benjamin Latta-Singer I started using bigger pockets about two years ago but never did much with it. After many life changes in the last two years my husband and I have decided we are ready to embark on the journey of buying our first home. We would love as much advise as possible in all areas of buying a first home. I am an active duty Marine so we do have access to the VA loan. We would like to buy this home with the intent to keep the for 3 years at least. Depending on where our life goes in the next three years will decide if we need to move or use our home as a rental property thereafter. We don't know yet at this moment if in our market that is even possible, so worst case we could always just sell the home. If we have the ability in the next 3 years we would like to try and purchase a second home to flip and build our wealth. It would be great to get some advice and ideas from a bunch of different people to see if anyone has started out this way or has any advice, dos, or dont's. Thank you in advance for any help.

[Theresa Harris]

Flipping is high risk and can go wrong if you don't know what you're doing (or overdo the renos).

For your house, run the numbers to see what it would look like as a rent as well as your own home.  There are a lot of extra costs that go with home ownership-property taxes, repairs and maintenance, etc.  There are also cost associated with buy (and selling).  In some areas, it is cheaper to rent than it is to buy, especially if you aren't sure if you will be there for a while.  Markets vary, but buying a home and selling it in 2-3 years, you may end up losing money once you add in all of the extra costs.