Are you looking to purchase or rent a home for yourself – on your own – one that fits all your needs (the location, the price, the architecture, essentially the lifestyle, etc.)? You want to find a cool apartment close to a coffee shop, and preferably in a good community, which governs your lifestyle more than you may realize. It may appear to be a daunting task in the beginning.

The task of building your nest becomes EVEN more challenging especially if you’re on the hunt for a place to live in one of the metropolitan cities in America; New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, and Houston. It is indeed an American Dream for a Millennial to have found the home that they have been planning for, for I don’t know how long.

Lately, the prices of real estate have been touching the skies, or even beyond. And, let’s face it. Our generation is already knee deep in debt (the economy is to blame, really). Therefore, it is important we make wise choices and know what we are getting ourselves into when making this huge purchase. There are still some things to consider if you are finding it difficult to decide whether to buy a place or to rent one for the time being.

Provide a strong down payment when buying a home. Although Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insured loans will provide coverage with as little as 5 percent down on the purchase price for people buying a house for the first time, larger down payments translate to fairness (and of course, security in the long term) in down markets. According to one of the studies, U.S. home prices dropped 17 percent from June 2007 to June 2013. With small down payments and large price swings, we, as borrowers might just find ourselves underwater with mounting mortgage payments before we know it and are going to be absolutely helpless by the end of it.

Do your homework and calculate your own debt-to-income ratio. Despite the fact that loan originators factor in your existing outstanding debt, what you might not know is that they may not be taking into account other definite costs of living, for instance the utilities, cable bills, and phone bills are some of the things one may consider essential.

Make sure you have a healthy credit score. For your credit score may determine the weight of your interest rate when applying for a loan. And do it well before its time, for instance, a year before you plan to purchase a home, make sure your credit history is as good as it can be. You must also be sure of all your mortgage payments cleared in time. Do consider switching to automatic debit for the mortgage payments at this point.

And there you have it! Easy as 1, 2, 3, isn’t it? Not really, but you may take the above mentioned steps and make your independently living experience a good one.