By Emily Meehan
From The Wall Street Journal Online

Wish you were more grounded? Here's a solution: Buy a house.

For people in their 20s, owning real estate is a way to take on more responsibility, get a sense of stability in at least one area of life and maybe even build up some equity, too. But it involves a heavy commitment -- to a mortgage, to a place, to holding a steady job -- all of which can limit lifestyle and career choices. What about that six-month trip around the world, going back to school or joining the Peace Corps? Once a deed is signed, it may not be that easy to skip town on a month's notice.

Jamie Schab, a 26-year-old interior design assistant, bought a townhouse in Sunnyvale, Calif., with her fiancé last May. Together they saved $120,000 for a down payment on the new $592,000 property. "It's made me more responsible," she says, "and I feel equal to my co-workers now because I'm not just renting and doing whatever ... I have to go home, clean, cook, and make sure the house doesn't fall apart." Ms. Schab feels comfortable with the commitment and has been budgeting for emergency repairs, property taxes and homeowners insurance. She doesn't plan on changing jobs but says if she does switch to a less lucrative career, her fiancé's income from his job as an office engineer for a contracting company would make up the difference. She thinks it helps that the property is new so bursting pipes and leaky roofs aren't likely for quite a while.

People in their 20s are more inclined to buy real estate now than they were 20 years ago, according to annual statistics from the U.S. Census bureau. In 2005, almost 26% of household heads under 25 years old owned their home, up from 17% in 1985. Homeownership rates for 25 to 29 year olds also increased over the past two decades, though not as sharply.

But don't we have a propensity to change jobs and cities in our twenties? How about college and graduate school? Military deployments? In this phase, it may be hard to count on an income beyond the most immediate job, which could change. Is it worth taking the risk of committing to a mortgage payment budgeted around unpredictable conditions?

"I wouldn't have done it any other way," says Jaya Manske, 23. Ms. Manske, a school teacher, bought her first home in Albuquerque, N.M., her first year out of college for $130,000. She was recently laid off and took a lower-paying job at a private school. "I couldn't move out of state -- even though the prospects in any other state would have been much better -- because I owned a home here," she says.

Ms. Manske talked with her boyfriend, whom she lives with, about the possibility of moving out of state and renting the property. "It seemed daunting and expensive," she says. Her parents had loaned her the $5,000 down payment for the house, and she was making just enough to cover the mortgage and expenses at her former job. Now she's getting a little help from her boyfriend. If the roof leaks, she says she might have to put the repair cost on her credit card.

The house is in her name and she says she'd prefer to be self-sufficient. "Certain things need to get pared down a bit ... going out to eat, going on vacation or camping for the weekend. There isn't really room for anything like that right now," she says. "It's much more dedicated to bills and only bills."

But in her view the economic benefits of building equity trump these concerns. "Each time I pay my own mortgage, I feel like I'm paying myself back for later on rather than paying into someone else's -- a landlord's -- business," she says.

For others, financial equity and flexibility are mutually exclusive.

Josh Brehm, 29, just bought a duplex in Wausau, Wisc., for $73,000 with his girlfriend. "When I was 23 or 24, I would have loved to buy a place," he says, "but my whole bag was 'What if I'm not here next year? What if I have to move ... do this, do that?' I've traveled quite a bit over the years ... that's one of the reasons I put this off for so long."

Mr. Brehm saved money through his twenties working in a management position and now works as a part-time supervisor at UPS and attends college. He says the income capacity of his duplex gives him and his partner the flexibility to move and rent out the whole building, perhaps leaving friends or family members to look after it. For now, they live downstairs and rent out the upstairs unit, which generates enough income to cover monthly payments on the mortgage.

But becoming a landlord is a big responsibility and it's not always easy to secure tenants. (See this earlier Act One column.) If moving is a likely possibility, the cost of hiring a property-management company should be factored in before making a purchase. And if renting out a house is out of the question, young people should consider how long they'd be willing to wait before getting a good offer to sell.

Phyllis Attebury, a real estate broker who lives in Carmel Valley, Calif., and works with clients on the San Francisco peninsula, says the market is slowing down a little and that buyers should be prepared to keep a house for at least five years to weather market downturns. "In the long haul, real estate has been a saving grace for many. But for a single person who's here, there, and everywhere they should probably just think about renting for a couple of years," she says.

Michael Esquivel, 23, a budget analyst who lives in New City, N.Y., is considering buying a house with two of his oldest friends. "But we're young, and any of us could change jobs easily or move out and the other two would be stuck paying the mortgage, which would be horrible," he says. On his own, Mr. Esquivel says he could only afford a shack and would prefer to live at his parent's house and save money to buy a nice house later on.

I'm a renter myself, and I often wonder if owning a home that I could paint orange and cerulean and landscape with agave cacti and olive trees would instill such a serene sense of propriety that I'd be willing to give up being footloose and cosmopolitan. Or maybe I'd be better off renting indefinitely, and spending any extra money on dinners out and trips to Oaxaca and Paris.

It's a tough call between empire and freedom.