<prompt> Human: So like the title says, Im 23 years old and I absolutely HATE paying rent. I have 0 in student loans, and I just got a raise from 70k to 80k. This translates to roughly 4696 a month after taxes. I have a car payment that is 240, and my rent bills come out to 1300. My take home per month is right around 2750 after all is said and done, and I have 10k in the bank currently. My question is, when is it safe to go out and buy a house? Saving up for a year seems like I would just be wasting roughly another 14-15k that I could just be putting into my housemortgage.  <response>: Youre not wasting it. Youre paying for a roof over your head and keeping yourself from having to pay PMI over potentially a much longer time span. Youre not paying for any emergency repairs or maintenance over that time either. Get 20 down. Check the New York Times rent vs buy calculator Make sure that 20 down does not include your emergency fund.You can save about 38000 over the next year with what youve given if you budget carefully. Thats 20 of a 190k house. Even if you happened to get a mortgage PMI homeowners insurance of about what youre paying in rent, you still wouldnt have that much equity in the house because youd have to budget for maintenance and have a larger emergency fund. Its very worth it to wait a year and get that down payment together. 