system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
When did you buy a house and how did you afford it?

I hope I am not positing on the wrong sub, please let me know if I am. I currently set on pursuing a PhD , followed by post docs and hopefully a more permeant position. For those of you who did pursue that track, when did you buy a house and was/is it difficult to pay for it? It feels like paying rent for 5-6 years for phd then like 4 years for post doc is a lot. 

I know there isn't a lot of money in academia, and I have already weighed my pros and cons and decided to pursue it for the time being, but I just want to make sure I can afford a house.

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Thank you!
gpt
Most PhD students and postdocs do not buy a house. 

Academics often have to move for each stage in their career, so the economics and stability of buying don't always make sense if you expect you can't stay put. Until achieving a faculty job, most academics are also very poorly paid. So affording a house within a reasonable commute is out of reach unless the student has help from parents, a better paid partner, or savings from previous jobs.

If you do successfully become a tenure track Assistant Professor, you will be able to afford a house in most markets. Can't make promises for, say, NYC, San Francisco Bay area, or Boston/Cambridge where starter homes are >$1M today. 

Different disciplines will also pay differently. A typical Professor of Medicine will make much more than a typical Professor of History.