With the real estate market in its current state of uncertainty, I would not buy anything for the short term. If you plan to hold for over 5 years you have a much greater chance or riding out any loss that happens in the short term. Houses are not like stocks, you can't flip them as you please in a bear market. I would say invest your savings in stocks or a mutual fund for now. You will probably do better that way in the short terms anyways, a good amount of real estate investors are pulling out of the market and going back to stocks, bonds, etc.

 

iF YOU HAVEN'T LIVED THERE TWO YEARS, BUT ARE TRANSFERRED, YOU STILL GET PART OF THE 250,000/500,000 GAIN EXCLUSION, (oops sorry about the caps), because the sale would be work related. But unless you are in an area of rising real estate values, (I mean really rising) your costs will eat into your profit and I would say don't buy. And what if you can't sell when you get transferred? What happens then?