Rodney

Tax reporting might be a little complicated. Say it's a 3-bedroom, and you're going to live in one and rent the other two. If you're going to do it by the book, you'd declare part of the house as a rental and part of it as your personal residence on your taxes. So on the part that's your residence, you deduct mortgate interest from your income for tax purposes. And on the part that's a rental, you count all rent payments as income; and mortgage payments, insurance, property tax, depreciation, maintenance, and so on, count as expenses. What with depreciation, you'll probably come out with a smallish net loss on the rental portion of your house, which means you get a deduction on it, but it's going to be a bigger tax return than you're used to.

That's if you do it by the book. If you just declare the house as your home and don't report the rental income, probably nothing will happen as long as you have _some_ kind of income that in theory is making the payments.

Of course, it'll be difficult to get a loan unless you can demonstrate the ability to make the payments through income (if your parents cosign, that may make a difference.) Some mortgage lender go easier on you if you promise them that you intend to rent out the house; because then they can count the estimated rental income toward qualifying you for the loan. But then you probably should do the type of tax reporting I described above.