<prompt> Human: Hello ,So currently Im 24 years old, and have a stable job making roughly 65kyr before taxes.My girlfriend who I live with makes roughly 25kyear before taxes.I have a car payment of 450mo, about 160mo in student loans, 250mo for our auto insurance, and about a few hundred in bills and other expenses.Im the main bread winner obviously and I have about 1500 paychecks bi-weekly, and monthly bonus checks as well, ranging anywhere from 250-1500.We pay 730 for rent right now and are very comfortable paying this price. Since I am now making a lot more money than I used to, I would easily be able to be paying more monthly for housing, and still be able to save and have extra money.What would you guys advise about buying a house? Is this a wise choice right now? Do we have enough annual income to be doing such? What should a good rule of thumb be for a price range?I know next to nothing about finances, and have never been in s situation where Im contemplating this, so I want to make smart moves only.  <response>: First: property values where you live are going to be a huge deciding factor here. If youre in Iowa and can get a house you like for 120k, I think youll do fine. If you live in SF or NYC or some other place with sky-high property values, kiss the house dream goodbye for a good long time. Do you know about how much a house in your area with the features you want would cost?Second: hows your credit? You can get a lower interest rate with a better credit score. If you dont have credit, or your score is low because you havent had credit cardsloans for very long, you should work to increase it before you buy a house. Third: since I havent seen it explicitly stated yet, Ill go ahead and get it out of the way: dont buy a house with someone you arent married to. Im a hypocrite about that, BTW, and I currently have zero regrets about my decision, but its one of the most commonly repeated pieces of advice I see on here. If you buy on your income alone, GF should pay rent as outlined in a lease agreement with you, and if thats insufficiently romantic for you, you can always save her rent and gift it back to her when you get married or want to go on a vacation or have kids or whatever. Youve gotten a ton of good advice about how to plan for down payments and home repair costs, so I wont go into much detail there. I will second the fact that houses are expensive. My house fund is my highest-funded savings account, and Ill still be saving for years to be able to do the things I want to do with it.As for the 20 down ... if youre looking at a 300k house, yes, 20 down would be 60k. Look around you though; do you need to spend 300k in your city to get the house you want? If you want a house that goes for 200k, you need 40k to make a 20 down payment. Still a lot, but maybe a little more doable. 20 is only a hard and fast rule for PMI; it isnt a hard and fast rule for getting a loan. Some lenders will give you a loan with as little as 5 down. I put 10 down. If your down payment is less than 20 of the cost of the home, you have to make an additional payment called PMI private mortgage insurance on top of the loan principal, interest, taxes, and insurance PITI, which the banks do to cover their butts in case property values go down, you default on your loan, and theyve paid 200k for a house that now will only sell for 150k. I pay 43month in PMI, and that will continue until Ive paid off 20 of the value of the house. I did the math once and I was much better off buying when I did with 10 down and paying PMI than waiting until I had the full 20 and getting stuck with a higher interest rate, but of course, YMMV and who knows what interest rates will be in the future. 