<prompt> Human: So Im 30 years old and married and my wife and I are planning on buying a home within the next year or so. We both have never owned an APT or home. Wed like to start a family soon and want to buy property before we do.My wife just finished her Masters and landed her first full time job so our gross income went from about 90K to 140K.Combined we have about 70K in student loans. Im currently in the process of refinancing to get a lower rate on some of my bigger loans interest rates in the 8-10 range. My credit score is around a 780 and my wifes is 810.We are currently renting paying approximately 1,000 month and looking to buy a house in the 300-350K range. We have about 10K saved up.So just a couple questions:What kind of rate should I be aiming to get for our student loans given our high credit scores?Should we pay off the student loans first before buying? Part of me thinks we should but we would like to have a child soon. The APT we rent right now is a 1BR and very cheap and nice for the area which has allowed us to save a little while my wife was finishing her masters. Weve been here for 4 years. However, we wouldnt be able to have an infant here. A 2 BR in the same area we want to stay where we are would rent for 1,600-1,800month. Which I believe would be close the the mortgage on a 300-350K house.First time homebuyers loan in Massachusetts? If you make over a certain amount are you disqualified? How much should we have saved before starting to make offers on potential homes?Thanks!Edit: Thanks everyone. Will take all advice into consideration. Appreciate your help!  <response>: BEWARE OF THE CREEP! - You are already living on a budget based on your 90k joint salaries and are able to save a little, just because youre making 50k more DOESNT mean you should up your budget another 50. Payoff debt - You have 70k in debt, and 50k of extra income. The debt should be paid off within 18 months itll be here before you know it, just keep chipping away Emergency Fund - After all your debt is paid off, save up 6-months worth of emergency fund before you do anything else, hopefully this will never be needed, but it will be a life saver when it is going from a 1k apartment to a 300k house will be a considerable budget change, so I would build the EF for the latter, Id say about 15k should suffice. This should take 4 months. Eliminate PMI - Save up 20 worth of down payment for the house 60k70k for a 300k350k home, respectively, which should only take another year Closing Costs - Save up a bit of extra for closing costs, 10k should be fine, so that everything is covered when you actually go to purchase the home.I know it sounds like a lot, but 18 months for debt, 4 months to build EF, another year for down payment, and a couple more for closing costs puts you 3 years out. After those 3 years you will be debt free minus the mortgage, the mortgage payment will be considerably lower especially with no PMI, you will have a great EF saved up for security with the new child, and all the costs associated with the sale will be paid for in cash without worrying about adding to your loan or taking out additional debt to pay for.This timeline SHOULD be considerably quicker as you are already bringing in 90k before taxes I assume and only have 1k in rent, so you SHOULD be able to save considerably more than the extra 4-5k you get per month from the added salary, plus you already have 10k saved up, so this should knock a couple months off your timeline!If you really buckle down, I bet you can cover all those bullet points within 2 years and have your EF, debt free, nice house, and ready for a child. 