<prompt> Human: Hello PF,Ive never posted before so apologies if I break the format. Im currently paying 2.1k in rent and am wanting to cut costs. My wife and I want to buy a fixer upper Denver metro area, probably closer to Boulder to save money on rent and hopefully turn a profit or at least live rent free and break even.The catch is that we dont plan to live here for an incredibly long time likely less than 5 years. Should we follow all of the normal rules save up 20 down, etc or are we safe to save up less? As you can imagine, 2.1k a month in rent really makes it hard to save up money in a reasonable amount of time. By the time we would save the 60k needed for 20 down on a half way decent house, wed likely be moving on. Any advice or direction is greatly appreciated!  <response>: If youre not going to be there for a long time, you need to make a bigger downpayment. Not smaller.There are significant transactional costs associated with buying and selling a house. If youre talking about a 300k house, figure youll spend 30k to buy and sell it. So 30k over five years is 500mo that youll blow in just the transactional costs. Then add in taxes really depends on your area, but not insignificant, insurance, interest on a mortgage If you put 20 down, youre looking at a 240k mortgage. Thats about 700mo in interest at 3.5, and then maintenanceimprovements. If you dont put 20 down, add something like 200mo in PMI.Add it all up and youll end up paying more to own the house over the course of five years than you would in rent at 2.1kmo. The math gets considerably worse if you drop it down to three or four years. And youre tying up a 60k down payment, which could actually be earning you a few hundred a month in investment returns if you dont spend it on a house.In your situation, it doesnt sound like a house makes sense. 