Which is the best first home? Apartment, town house, or house?

Are you planning on just renting or looking to buy?
If just renting and can afford it I would say house,and if it gets to much you can take on a room mate and not be tripping over each other.
If looking to buy,I would still say house, once done with a mortgage all you have is taxes, with an apartment(condo) or town house after you get it all paid off you will always have strata fees that will never go away.
My opinion only but somebody will argue against it.

Apartment. So the landlord maintains any repairs that are needed. Then you can learn how to maintain a household and progress to a house.

Until you’ve established yourself in both a geographical area and a career of some sort (but primarily the geography part), you’re probably best off in an apartment. That’s because you’re only committed for a year at a time with most leases, so you can pick up and move when your employer moves you or you change jobs or you just decide to pull up stakes and move on.

A house, while it might be a rewarding investment when you can a) time the buy correctly for the cycle in that area and ‘buy low’ and b) hold on long enough for the magic of time (and the continuity of the cyclical market) to more or less automatically increase the value over time and c) make improovements to the place over your period of ownership – if you only hold the place for a year or so, you’ll very likely lose money on the sale. And that’s assuming that you CAN sell the place. Real estate is not a liquid investment; you could be stuck with it for some time when you’re desperate to sell.

If you’re in an area where they’re common and easy to buy and sell (and set up), then a mobile home or even a travel trailer can be an excellent first house. When I started my career in construction I lived for a couple of years in one 28’ travel trailer in North Carolina, then Florida, with the final full year in Oregon. I saved a lot of money that way – and enjoyed the coziness – and then had the money to buy a mobile home for cash.

After we got married, my wife and I together had saved enough to buy our first frame house for cash.

It’s the sacrifices you make early on that enable you to do better later in life.

Are you living in a college town: a place with universities and regular students looking for off campus housing? If yes, then go for a double house. You can live in one half and rent out the other. True, you will be a landlord but with the right tenants it will not be so much more work for you. The income and tax benefits will really help.

Rent a apartment.

My sister just bought a house. Even though it was inspected and came back with a clean bill of health a week after they moved in it turns the bathroom in the basement has leak. It smelled of shit. And it cost around 15K to get fixed.

And it sounds like your good job is new. Last in and first out. Don’t think about buying until you have enough in savings to swing a year without employment.

Owning a house is expensive. Hot water heaters leak, roofs degrade, pipes leak.

Rent, let the landlord deal with this shit until you are comfortable enough you don’t need to ask this question.