<prompt> Human: My SituationAs the title says, Im 25 and I just landed my first job as a teacher. I currently live with my parents, but I will be moving out and relocating about 4 hours away. I dont have any money saved and will need to move soon. Also, my credit sucks. My parents are encouraging me to buy a home. I know next to nothing about buying a house, but if I do buy one I have 4 to 5 weeks to do so.The PlanBasically, my parents have offered to take out a loan so I can buy a house. I would have to pay the loan back to the bank myself. I would use the borrowed money to buy straight from an owner and not use an agent or anything like that. Ive researched some homes for sale in the area that I will be moving to and found some that are foreclosed and really cheap. Again, I know next to nothing about buying homes so I really dont understand why theyre so cheap or what that means.Im not asking you to fix me through this post, but I would really appreciate it if you could shed some light on what Im getting into. What are my best options as far as getting a new home in such a short amount of time? I appreciate your time!Assistant: I am not a financial expert. Thats the first thing.I would suggest to you that buying a house when you have no money and are just starting out doesnt seem like a good idea to me. You want to start your life in debt? Before you even know if youll be able to pay it off?Id suggest renting a place for a while. See how the job goes. Save up some money first, an emergency fund. Whats the rush to be in debt for the next 15 to 30 years?Human: Thank you for your response.My original plan was to rent a cheap apartment and live on a college budget. I would be making way more money than I have ever made in my life and I would be living like I did in college. However, rent would be on average 800 per months. My parents pointed out that I would essentially never see that money again. If buy a home though, my payments could be around the same, but I would be investing the money instead of throwing away. Wouldnt it make sense to put the money towards a cheap home that I could potentially sell if I want to move in the future vs paying the same amount in rent and never get any of it back?Assistant: Sure, but I would say that makes sense after youre in a more stable position. It wouldnt even take that long to get there, I dont think.What Im saying is, what happens if you lose your job in 3 or 4 months, and have no savings? How will you pay your debt?If you had about 6 months of monthly expenditures in the bank, as an emergency fund, youd be able to pay your mortgage while you look for a new job. Without that, I guess youd have to hope your parents would pay your mortgage in the meantime. Im not saying dont buy a house. Im saying it might be prudent to build up an emergency fund first.Human: Youre right, I didnt think about the possibility of losing my job. I guess I would be taking a huge risk buying a home right now without an emergency fund. Assistant: Right, and the job you get after losing your current one might not pay as much. So my suggestion is: build up an emergency fund first. If you want a house, get one, but dont go for the most expensive mortgage that you think you can afford. Try to keep your debt low.Human: Im looking at homes within the 30k to 50k range. I noticed that some homes in the area are within that range because they have been foreclosed. Again, I have no idea what that works and if thats the price I would have to pay if I wanted the house.  <response>: Foreclosed homes can be troublesome to close on, and typically theyve been left in very very poor condition torn apart and I would guess that your price range would be much much worse than normal. Remember, these are homes that people lost to the bankmortgage holder.Closing in 4-5 weeks is pretty fast and youd hate to be out of the place to live before you even move just because the closing didnt happen when expected. My advice, get an apartment for a year, or even month to month, learn the area, find out where youd like to live, and then go looking for houses if you absolutely want to. A house for 30k - 50k is definitely going to have payments lower than 800 a month, but you also might be living in the ghetto and dodging bullets every night!Do some research, dont rush, and make your own decisions. 