Thanks all for the comments. To clarify a few points, I am committed to finishing a PhD. To make myself sound stupid, I signed a scholarship deed which basically deeds my life out to this company (6 years of indentured service), in exchange for full funding for undergrad through grad school. They will be paying be 50K a year during grad sch in addition to sch fees and stuff so yeah. Btw I’m not an economics/business student but an engineer.
Grad school housing is notoriously hard to come by. Currently the wait list is between 3-4 years so that basically kills everything. Median cost of renting a 2 bed pad is $1400 for a decent place near school.
Noone, good point about the cost of home ownership vs renting. This are the way I figure the numbers.
HOA over 5 years (200/mth) : 12k
Insurance (400/yr) : 2k
Property taxes : 9k
Maintenance : 5k
Investment opportunity cost : 21k (2% from a money market acct/fd, I’m no financial savant)
Comission cost : 13k (assuming a 10% recovery in the property market in 5 years)
Cost of ownership = 41k (offset by 20k appreciation)
Cost of rental = 84k
This 200k represents my easily disposable assets, and I have other assets currently under investment.
FormerSanDiegan, I don’t think I’d be able to charge $800 per person. Market rates are about 600-700 per pax. I’m currently not too keen on taking up a loan due to mobility reasons. I’ll need to uproot after grad school, and I don’t want a loan from grad sch days to come back haunting me when I start my new job.
Once again thanks all for the helpful comments! (btw I cant believe I got myself into this whole grad sch business >.< should have followed everyone into banking or cunsultancy.. =p )
