Should College Coaches Buy a House After Taking a New Job?

Things have been in the works for what has felt like months, but the moment has finally arrived; you've accepted a position at a new program. It feels like a major step forward for you; you're only getting a modest pay bump but you're stepping into a more established program with a larger staff, good budget, competitive conference, and great territory to recruit. It was an intensive interview process where you outlasted several other highly qualified candidates, and you're excited about what comes next. You've talked it over with your family, your spouse is already looking at career opportunities, everyone's on board with making the change over the summer.

You look around the home you've lived in for the past five years. You have fond memories of raising your family in nearly every room, but you could feel that you were starting to outgrow the place. You're looking forward to what comes next; finding and buying a new home to make new memories in.

That's where college coaches who take new jobs start to run into issues.

"Making new memories?"

No, defaulting to buying a home.

The act of buying and owning a home revolves around stability. Think about it; we're talking about a big piece of property that usually requires a 30-year loan to pay off.

I'm sorry, but as a college coach you simply don't operate on that timeline.

Now, I'm aware that sounds like I assume you're going to fail and be forced to move through no choice of your own. But it has nothing to do with expecting failure, and everything to do with the inherent uncertainty that seeps into every decision you make.

The simple matter is that most people buy homes because it feels like the responsible, adult thing to do. But the worst thing you can do is make a decision of this magnitude under pressure.

Before we continue, I want to get clear on something.

I am not against home ownership. I am simply against rushing into significant financial decisions because you've convinced yourself it's the only option.

There is, of course, another option.

You can rent.

The Anti-Rent Bias

"But Jake, I thought renting was throwing money away?" This is, unfortunately, a common assumption people have when it comes to deciding whether to rent or buy a home. And when pressed, most folk aren't really able to pinpoint where exactly they got this idea from in the first place. Like many pervasive beliefs in society, it comes from marketing, propaganda, and a whole lot of cultural reinforcement over time.

The earliest vestiges of this assumption trace back to our founding fathers. Historian Vincent J. Cannato, professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, notes that Thomas Jefferson, as well as his Federalist opponents John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, "worried that if Americans who owned no property were granted suffrage, they would be obligated to support the political whims of their employers or landlords." The legal requirement that you had to own property in order to vote was eventually removed, but the way of thinking stood. Owning your own land and home became part of the "American Dream," a mindset that was reinforced by things like the Homestead Act of 1862 and the settlement of the western frontier. Walt Whitman at the time put it best: "A man is not a whole and complete man unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on."

And from there, home ownership just kept getting pushed harder and harder. After WWI, the Department of Labor started the "Own Your Own Home" campaign in an attempt to stimulate the post-war economy, solve the urban housing shortage, and quell unrest in urban workers. The federal government had a vested interest in encouraging home ownership, and by the time Herbert Hoover addressed Congress in 1931, he laid it on thick: "To possess one's own home is the hope and ambition of almost every individual in our country..." and, more memorably, "But they never sing songs about a pile of rent receipts."

Once this became a federal government thing, it became a society thing. Mortgages became freer and easier, and the idea of home ownership got pushed harder and harder through policy, culture, and pop culture. Renters were framed as people living in crowded, poor conditions, subject to the whims of a landlord, whereas home ownership meant control, stability, and living the American Dream.

The end result of all of this is that a "rent stigma" exists in American society. People would rather own than rent, plain and simple. And to be clear, there are definite advantages to owning versus renting. But there are also advantages to renting versus owning that can't be discounted, especially when it comes to you as a college coach and all of the inherent volatility that goes with it.

The real issue is that renting gets compared to ownership in terms of expense and what it goes for. But the reality is that renting lives in a totally different lane than buying, especially when it comes to homes. Buying is a form of investment, whereas renting is paying for a service. That is an important distinction to remember as we continue to discuss what makes sense for you going forward.

"Jake, what services do I receive by renting?"

Renting allows you to transfer a lot of the risk and responsibility onto your landlord at the cost of monthly rent. Something breaks in your house? Landlord's responsibility. Property taxes go up? Landlord's problem. Fannie Mae suggests that homeowners budget between 1% and 4% of a home's value per year for ongoing maintenance, repairs, and replacements. If you're renting, that's on your landlord to have that set aside, not you.

Renting allows you to stay flexible, move in and out in a more timely fashion, and not be tied down. These are all valuable services in the right situation, especially when you work in a profession where short tenures are the norm, not the exception.

For most college coaches taking a new job, renting should be the default assumption unless there is a strong, specific reason to buy right away.

That isn't because renting is always better than owning, and it isn't because I think coaches should expect things to go badly. It's because buying a house is a major investment, and in a profession full of uncertainty, you should need a stronger reason than "this feels like what successful adults do next." The problem is that for a lot of people, buying a house doesn't just feel like a housing decision. It feels like proof that the move worked, that life is moving forward, and that things are finally settling down. And that is exactly where buying under pressure starts to creep in.

The Danger of Buying Under Pressure

Here's what the societal pressure of living "the American Dream" actually does to your brain.

We all have this idea in our heads that life progresses in a linear fashion. There's something hardwired inside of us to push forward, and the idea of moving somewhere new and renting, especially if you already own your home, feels like a massive step back in life. Which is kind of ridiculous for two reasons:

1. As we already established in the previous section, the idea that home ownership is the ultimate goal, the only way to be a "whole and complete man," is deeply embedded propaganda. You don't become a failure in life when you start writing checks to a landlord instead of to a bank. There are "proud homeowners" who have never left their childhood towns, never taken any risks in their careers, never been driven by a competitive desire to be the best that they can be and help others be their best selves. Who you are doesn't get redefined if you start or go back to renting.
2. As coaches, how often have we told our athletes that progress isn't linear? Not every practice, meet, game, or season is going to move doggedly in the same direction. There will be periods of setbacks, of strife, of adversity, of hard times. What would you tell your athletes in those moments? I'm guessing you wouldn't think of them as failures. You'd probably tell them to step back and look at the big picture. You'd probably tell them that there's all sorts of context for what is happening, and that we can only take things one day at a time. I'm not suggesting you think of renting as a setback in the first place, but if you already view it as such, this can be a helpful reframe.

And that's what makes this tricky. Even after you strip away the anti-rent baggage, there are still plenty of real reasons you might want to buy a home right away. A few common ones look like this:

None of these reasons are inherently bad. The issue is simply that they're all being evaluated in the middle of a stressful move, on a compressed timeline, in a profession that rarely gives you much room for error.

Think about the conditions under which you are making the decision to purchase a home. If you're reading this post, it's safe to assume that A. you are a college coach, and B. you are taking, or at least thinking about taking, a new job somewhere. This is an exciting time in your life, but it's also inherently stressful, and I get it. When I moved to Missouri to start my coaching career, I had a hard enough time figuring out where I was going to live, in a state I'd never even set foot in, without considering home ownership opportunities. You're already on some sort of a timeline, and you need to figure out what you can afford, where specifically you want to live (close to campus? Outside of the city? What neighborhood? What school district?), what life will look like once you move in, what works best for your spouse and family. And the elephant in the room here is that you've chosen a profession where you are very rarely guaranteed another season, even if you have a multi-year contract.

Am I saying that you should plan to leave or be fired when it comes to deciding whether or not to buy a home? Of course not, that's loser talk. But it does highlight everything that weighs on you while you try to make this decision.

Remember that purchasing a home is an investment, one that comes with real estate agent commissions, taxes, and other transaction costs every time you buy. Would you make any other significant investment with limited duration and high costs, under duress? If your answer is yes, let me perform my duties as a financial advisor and say I would not advise that.

Reasons Buying Now Can Make Sense

"Okay Jake, I get it. I'll never buy a house again." C'mon, don't be weird. There are plenty of reasons that buying a house right away can make sense. We just need to make sure the reasons can make a stronger case than "yeah we can probably make it work."

Here are some reasons why it might make sense to buy a home when you take a new job. This is a non-exhaustive list, because everyone is different.

The house should fit your life, not consume it.

Reasons Renting First Can Be the Smarter Move

If you're anything but crystal clear on the reasons laid out in the previous section, that doesn't mean that buying a home is the wrong move. It simply means that buying a home might be the wrong move if done right away.

Remember that renting is paying for a service. And like any other service you pay for, you can and should expect to receive clear and tangible benefits. We've already discussed some of the benefits of renting, like transfer of liability, flexibility, and speed. What renting also buys you is time and information.

Remember the conditions under which you are most likely making this decision. You are taking a job at a school you've most likely never worked for before, moving to a place you've most likely never lived, along with your family who most likely has no experience with the area either. You're making a lot of decisions and reorienting your life on guesswork and projection. What renting allows you to do is feel things out in your new life with minimal commitment.

When you first move, maybe a 20-minute commute to school sounds fine in theory. But after six months of late-night practices, student events, and early morning bus departures, you're fed up and want to live closer to campus. Maybe you discover that the only grocery store in town that stocks the brand of pasta your kids like is on the other side of town. Maybe you find out that the peaceful, quiet neighborhood you moved into is actually a college-student hotbed. Had you bought your home right away, you could be looking at a costly, arduous, and time-consuming relisting and moving process that could leave you with your pants down if the market isn't in a good place. Remember that you can expect to pay an additional 2% to 5% in closing costs when you purchase a home, which starts to really add up with each subsequent purchase. However, if you decide to rent first, it's a simple matter of finding a new place and moving out when your lease is up.

Everyone's personal situation and timeframe are of course different, but a good rule of thumb is to plan on renting for a year before you buy a home anywhere new. Twelve months is a good amount of time to get through an academic cycle while getting a feel for the lay of the land, and in the meantime, you're preserving flexibility while you decide whether you're ready for the financial and maintenance responsibilities of home ownership. Your personal situation may call for more or less time; the specifics don't matter as much as trying to avoid selling and buying more frequently than you need to.

"But if we wait, prices might go up!"

Sure! Maybe! Mortgage rates could change too. Your total cost could absolutely end up being higher if you wait, but if you rush the decision and end up needing to sell and buy again, you'll end up paying more in closing and transaction costs anyway. Timing the market rarely works, and this decision should be more about whether your situation actually supports buying now anyway.

Questions To Ask Yourself

If you're still hung up on the decision to buy a house right away or rent, ask yourself the following questions:

Conclusion

I understand that it can feel like you've failed to level up if you are renting, especially if you previously owned your home. However, that is simply not the case. Remember that renting is paying for a service, a useful one at that. This service allows you to protect your flexibility while you gather information that will help you to make a sound investment.

So should college coaches buy a house when they take a new job? The answer honestly is that it depends.

If you can make the case that buying a house makes sense and fits your life and goals, even if the inherent instability present in the coaching world forces a change on you, then you can feel more confident in your decision. But if the case you make for buying a house boils down to it feels like the right thing to do, that simply isn't enough, and that's exactly the kind of decision worth pressure-testing with a financial advisor who you trust.

The decision is not rent versus buy. It's how you use renting as a tool to make a good purchase.

And if it doesn't? Then there is absolutely no shame in renting for a year while you get your feet under you and figure out your next steps.