[swatcoder]

So you oblige yourself to an enormous long-term loan at high-interest, burn PMI on it because you have too little equity, secured against an overpriced-for-quality home whose value may already be at peak or plataeu, fixing yourself to one location, while all signs warn that you may be laid off at any time and facing a long period of unemployment.

I knew a lot of people who did almost exactly that ~18 years ago. It didn't go well for them.

And then it turned out that staying flexible as a renter and setting aside cash set me up to buy after a correction instead of before. That part went very well for me.

Be careful with the assumption coded into your "forecast spreadsheet"

[karlgkk]

Well yes, there are tradeoffs. On the other hand, go ahead and burn 3k a month on rent.

There is no one size fits all solution but i’m surprised at how many people here are inadvertently revealing to me that they haven’t even tried evaluating.

For example, you saying there’s nothing “affordable” when the baseline assumption is an income of $250k? Can tell you haven’t looked at what’s in your price range. Alright, good luck I guess!