<prompt> Human: Hi PFers,My SO and I got engaged about a year ago, and are getting married in July. We are struggling to decide between renting and buying a fixer upper and flipping it in a few years. I dont think we are quite ready to purchase our dream home yet, as we would like to pay at least 20 down, if not more, and need time to save. Our income is 154K gross, and have 70K of low interest student debt 2.5 that we are currently putting most of our take-home towards. We are completely novices when it comes to owning, buying, or selling a home. We are planning to have kids at a minimum of 3 years, and a soft maximum of 5 years. Do you guys suggest delving into the housing market with such little experience? We would like to avoid renting, as one bedroom apartments are insanely expensive and the money isnt going anywhere, but we understand that it may have to be done. We have lived with each other and roommates for the last 4 years and really would like to live with just each other this year.You guys rock. Thanks for all you do for the community.  <response>: Honestly dont do a fixer upper. My husband and I bought a fixer upper for 160k 5 years agoplan to stay in it though not sell. We have done 40k in fixing it upmostly ourselves if your not handy expect to pay way more we did the deck, fence,windows,bathrooms, and paint ourselves and paid someone to do the roof which was damaged due to hail,hvac and water heater and we still have another 50k to go before its what we wantneeds a new kitchen and driveway repaved and new carpet throughout! Luckily we paid for everything with cash. So if you dont have a huge cash reserve I wouldnt do a fixer upper either or you will just be in debt. Its a never ending money pit and there is always a project! Honestly if I could go back in time I would have waited a year or two to buy and bought a brand new home for 350k instead that was a bit smallerwe make way more now then we did 5 years ago almost double. It would have been a lot less headache! But what is done is done. The only upside is we refinanced to a 15 year last year and are making extra payments so we will be mortgage free in 5 years at 33. Also that our homes worth about 70k more than we bought it for and will be worth about 110k more once we finish it completely. But this only works if you stay in the fixer upper for a long time. 