trying to figure out best plan for purchasing 1st property

[Erin Schenk]

Buy a Condo vs Rent vs wait longer to be able to buy a SFR

I live in Ventura, CA and am interested in getting into real estate investing.

I will be moving out of my current rental in a couple of months and am trying to figure out the best plan on housing situation- whether it makes more sense to rent or to buy.

Condos have been something that I have wanted to stay aware from since there is an HOA that could change and would be a cost every month even after the property is paid off. However with a teaching salary I am not able to qualify for a traditional loan amount large enough to buy a single family home.

Here are some of the numbers:

renting a room would cost $650-800/month

1 bedroom rentals are around $1300 for anything decent; Ive been seeing a range of $1100-$1800 depending on the location and property

lowest 2 bedroom rentals in the parts of town I would be interested in are around $1500 although most are higher than that

condos can be found for around $250,000 for some 2 bedrooms; there are some 3 bedroom ones in the mid 300s

HOAs tend to be around $200-$350 per month

I havent seen any houses under $400,000.

many 3 bedroom homes in the area I would be interested in are going around $530,000

I have enough for a 5% down payment on a condo. I could potentially put more down depending on the deal and if I had someone rent the other bedroom.

I’ve been crunching the numbers on what the rent/buy comparison would be for how it effects my bank accounts over the course of a year. just starting to work on numbers for what the debt pay down would be over 1 and over 5 years.

It would be great to get some feedback on what seems to make investment sense. and on whether it would be better to keep saving cash toward a down payment on a SFR or to buy something at a lower price point sooner.

[Robert L.]

My correction:
93004 = 769 Non-Owner Occupied, both in & out of Cali. Owners.
(I was previously removing those who purchased over Assessment = 165. Otherwise, Purchase Price < Assessment = 604)

93003 = 1,379 Non-Owner Occupied Total

93001 = 1,305 Non-Owner Occupied Total

I would venture to guess that unless there's an awful lot of vacation homes in these numbers, it might be tipping the scale in favor of renters going mostly for SFRs in Ventura.
I was leaving out Condos and 2-4 Units (MFD) while running these numbers.