Buying our 1st home as a "fixer upper", intending to sell in 4yrs

[Brandon P.]

Disclaimer: We are new home buyers, having lived in apartments for the last 10 years due to constant moving around for jobs.

So we are looking to move out of our apartment in the suburbs of Philadelphia and into a home that is currently livable, but needs some work / updating. We're hoping to be able to sell it in 4 years (the point at which we intend to move South and settle down for good somewhere) and make some money on the deal.

Obviously there are a lot of factors at play here, but is this a terrible idea? We have the knowledge, resources, and time to do most light remodeling ourselves, but we also seem to be buying at a pretty bad time (low home supply in our general area). 

I know nobody can know if/when a housing market correction will come along, and this general area has seen substantial home value appreciation for 10+ years now. I'm just wondering if we should just bite the bullet and continue renting.

I've always heard the 5 year number when it comes to staying in your home to be able to make up the losses from closing costs but we really need more space, and rent is so high here that it seems like buying a home and putting work into it over a few years is the smarter choice.

Thanks for reading!