It's really difficult, I've been in my house for 12 years. When I bought, I thought the prices were absolute peak insanity... but I've continually been wrong.
Even the advice I have is tainted by pretty much lucking into a company that pays okayish (that I've been laid off from 4x but never stayed that way - getting hired back on in different functions/areas).
My biggest frustration is that my 2bedroom apartment before I moved was $690 a month and just with property taxes I pay $425 a month to essentially rent from the local town.
My wife works, dual income really helped. All my bonuses and commission went into the house and we paid it off in 9 years. It took her 6 months to find a job when her company laid her off last year, not having a mortgage payment every month meant we could weather it alright - still food, kids, limited travel to visit family, insurance...
The amortization table skews heavily towards interest as you start paying the loan, getting ahead of it helps build equity much more quickly. 3% of my payment went towards principal the first year, and by year 7-8 60-70% went towards principal, which helps snowball.
If there's someone you can trust to live with you and contribute... it'd help. A lot of people want to pick up extra jobs, but I'd much rather control spending and not kill myself (cheap hobbies, fishing, computer games, exercise, cooking). I drive an suv that's almost 20 years old with over 200,000 miles and plan on buying something pre-2019 when it dies.
It's really difficult, I've been in my house for 12 years. When I bought, I thought the prices were absolute peak insanity... but I've continually been wrong.
Even the advice I have is tainted by pretty much lucking into a company that pays okayish (that I've been laid off from 4x but never stayed that way - getting hired back on in different functions/areas).
My biggest frustration is that my 2bedroom apartment before I moved was $690 a month and just with property taxes I pay $425 a month to essentially rent from the local town.
My wife works, dual income really helped. All my bonuses and commission went into the house and we paid it off in 9 years. It took her 6 months to find a job when her company laid her off last year, not having a mortgage payment every month meant we could weather it alright - still food, kids, limited travel to visit family, insurance...
The amortization table skews heavily towards interest as you start paying the loan, getting ahead of it helps build equity much more quickly. 3% of my payment went towards principal the first year, and by year 7-8 60-70% went towards principal, which helps snowball.
If there's someone you can trust to live with you and contribute... it'd help. A lot of people want to pick up extra jobs, but I'd much rather control spending and not kill myself (cheap hobbies, fishing, computer games, exercise, cooking). I drive an suv that's almost 20 years old with over 200,000 miles and plan on buying something pre-2019 when it dies.