I completely agree with Matt. As soon as you travel just about any place that is not Hampton Roads you realize what a horrible place (that may be harsh but it is how I feel about it) this really is. Unfortunately my family is not in the position right now where we can just pick up and move. That is why we are buying the house. We expect we will have 30-50k in equity in about 5-8 years. After that we are gone and never looking back. Like most people of my generation, I am in a position where it is basically impossible for me to actually save any significant amount of money. I realized the only way we would ever save money is to stop paying other people to live on their property and start paying ourselves for maintaining our own property.