<prompt> Human: So heres the situation; my girlfriend and I are looking to by a home by the end of this year in Washington, DC. We currently live rent-free with my parents; she makes 52Kyr and I make about 40K. My girlfriend has about 55K in student loan debt and nothing else, and I currently have around 30K of student loans, but I am in graduate school right now and that number will hover around 85K by the time I am out of school in 2017. It is worth mentioning that I am a social worker and I can take advantage of the Federal Governments Student Loan Forgiveness program, but I will still have to make 120 payments 10yrs worth, but once I do, the rest is forgiven all my loans are Federal, no private. My girlfriend is a federal employee and can utilize that same program.I also am currently paying off my car, and have about 9K left on the vehicle 1.9 interest and I pay 335mo to pay it down faster. Neither I nor my girlfriend have any credit card debt, and both of our credit scores are in the mid-to-high 700s. My question is what to do with the money I have savedwill have saved by living with my parents. I currently have about 13K saved up, and by the time we plan to move out in December, I will have about 24K in savings; its not exact, but I have stuck studiously to my savings plan and have not missed a goal yet, so I think that calculation is safe. It might not seem like a large amount but feels like a huge number to me; its way more money than Ive ever had in my life.My girlfriend is also a good saver and will have at least 18K by that time she only just got her job so she is behind me in the savings department. We plan to split the down payment evenly between the two of us.How should I distribute that 24K? I obviously want to have an emergency fundsomething to show for living with my parents for over a year. I also would like to pay off my car so I dont have to pay that plus a mortgage every month, and by December that would mean throwing 7K at the car to make it go away, but I dont know if it would be better to use that 7K for the down payment for the house, because DC is expensive as fuck and the more cash we have the better place we can buy. We are in the process of applying for a loan, but its a safe bet well get approved for about 350K.What should we do?Assistant: You make a combined 92kyr and are considering a 350k mortgage? Thats a recipe to be house poor in a heart beat. If youre set on moving out this year, I would seriously consider renting something cheap and continue to save money for a large down payment. Use the money to pay off your car and hang on to the rest as an emergency fund anor starter down payment fund. tl;dr: I would highly advise to not jump into home ownership too fast.Human: The monthly payments would be very manageable assuming we dont end up in a place with big HOA fees for a loan that size. Im told by our real estate agent that its pretty typical, even in this vastly more conservative loan market since the financial crash, for people to purchase homes that around 3-4x their annual income. I dont know if well ever be able to get a 20 down payment together I mean, 70k??, cmon! and it is very common for people to put down between 5-10. I guess my question is why does that seem like a house poor investment? 350k might sound like a lot, but in the DC market thats about as cheap as it gets.  <response>: And most people are idiots with money. Just because its common doesnt mean its a smart choice. Most people see no issue with carrying a balance on their CC. Why do you want to do what most people do? Its not an excuse to make a poor financial decision. 