[jIM_Ohio]

S&S-

My comment would be do the condo. My wife suffered from what I call "never lived alone" syndrome. She always had mom their to pay all the bills, do the laundry, cook food, buy food and take care of more details than I can list here. If you go right from living with dad to living with BF or husband, I can tell you there are SOOOO many things you will need to learn about getting used to your own habits plus those of a SO.

It took a LONG time to break her of old habits or teach her new ones. In some ways it is still a work in progress 8 years later. If you live on your own now, even for 6-18 months until next SO comes along, you will at least learn your own habits and what is important to you.

If you get a condo that is something YOU would be doing to teach yourself things YOU do not know and improve YOUR financial situation.

Maybe in 3 years you decide to sell the condo and buy dad's house. Would you actually lose anything if this were the case? Maybe time, I could not see you losing money (you might not make any money, but I think most you would lose is about $2k in closing costs or maybe $5k-10k in a bad real estate market. Best guess is the tax benefits make even a 5k loss a wash.

I don't think anyone gets a condo expecting to live in it for 30-60 years.

You would get a tax deduction in the meantime (more for you to learn) and also be more independant than you are now (it's sink or swim for you in the condo).

Size does matter- if you plan to move out first opportunity, get a smaller condo for just you. If you'd like to live there for 10 years, get some room (like a second bedroom) included in the townhouse/condo. This way if next BF moves in, you have room for more stuff.

The 179k price you saw on the condo we used to own could have bought us a single family home in same zip code. We chose to NOT go that route because of the hidden single family home expenses (mowing lawn, roof/house repairs and similar), plus the location of that condo kicks butt (real close to interstate and walking distance to shopping).

LAL last post was quite good too.