<prompt> Human: Im a 30-year-old nurse living in south LA with my mother. In an effort to be open and honest and hopefully get great advice from the powerhouse of reddit PF, here is my financial situation: I bring in approximately 8,000month after taxes. About 1500 of it is spent on taking care of a car lease, student loan payments, and helping my mom around the house. I do not have any other major monetary obligations, and my mom is financially stable. I have about 40,000 in savings. For the past few months, Ive been actively looking around south Downtown LA and found an amazing loft that Id like to rent. Ever since a failed relationship threw me toward depression a few years ago, Im out, doing great, and enjoying life. Im really, really, _really_ excited about living on my own and starting a new chapter of my life. I am pretty set on DTLA because its close to work, and I am admittedly looking at more expensive and modern lofts for lease. Silly, I know, but I would prefer a place thats new and with lots of amenities over a cheaper place, even if Id be saving money. But. My extended family and I had a sort of intervention over dinner a few nights ago. The topic was why are you going to rent, if you can save a bit more and then buy?Now, Reddit, I completely understand that the rent vs. buy situation is well documented and a lot of people ask the same question. I guess Im just looking for some situation-specific advice from you all.The location Im thinking about in Downtown will cost me approximately 2700mo. Id also have to buy new furniture and kitchen supplies, etc. So overall, I will be spending no less than a good 35-40,000 in the first year alone not factoring in other incidentals, possibly more money due to going out around the area, etc.. Or, as my family puts it, stay at home, save up for bit, and then try to buy your own place Downtown or somewhere else. Trouble is, from all of the Mortgage websites I keep exploring, I see that a mortgage for a Downtown condo lets say 900k as an example is really, really expensive. Even if I can score a mortgage that is a 30-year fixed with 5 down sounds like a lot of my friends are able to get 5 down, Id still be paying 5-6,000month for the mortgage. So, on to action items, and thanks if youve been bearing with me so far:1. Mortgage pricing: Does that 5-6,000mo for a 900,000 mortgage sound accurate? I cant seem to get a solid number from anywhere. 2. What is your opinion on the move? I am mentally desperate to become more independent and start my own life living alone, but I also realize that Ive just psyched myself out and am mentally wanting to live alone. I think I understand that objectively, the smarter thing is to continue living at home with my mom and save money, especially since shes encouraging me to do so and were super close best friends. I sometimes feel embarrassed when friends ask me if Im still living at home and I can totally hear my friends now saying but I thought you wanted to move? what happened? But I am willing to be objective and put those feelings aside for my personal future and well-being. 3. Any other advice? If I ditch the plan to move now, my plan is to aggressively save as much money as I can for the next few months or year and hit approximately 100k and then go shopping for a mortgage. I just need to really wrap my head around the true cost of a mortgage and what to expect. Ive read a lot about the somewhat-non-obvious costs of owning a place appliances, repairs, etc. Bottom line, mentally Im struggling and want to experience independence and rent an apartment to move out of my home. But I dont know if ditching the plan and saving money will actually benefit me and allow me to be a homeowner in the near future. I say near future because, ideally, Id want to purchase my own place within a year. Thanks for reading all of it, and looking forward to comments. Tldr: 30yo living with my mom, want to move to DLTA but its expensive and family is suggesting I stay home and continue saving. I am mentally ready and stoked to move out but I also understand what a money pit this lease might be. Suggestions?Assistant: Try to pay off your student loans first. Youd be insane to get a 900k mortgage on your salary. 5-6k would be about right including PITI. 2700 rent would not be ideal but its fine.Human: Thanks. So to put things into perspective here, Im making roughly 180,000 a year and I bring home the 8kmo after taxes. Now that I write that out, it seems so low compared to my salary. Interesting.So realistically, when do people even consider buying a house in their lifetime? Is it when you have a substantial amount of money saved and youre able to reduce the mortgage amount so that youre not paying 90-95 of your house cost via a loan? It sounds crazy to me when I hear a lot of friends buying houses and getting mortgages around me. Then again, I think a lot of them get help from their parents.  <response>: Youre probably over withholding, you should be more around 110-120k take home. Unless youre maxing out a 401k.They probably arent getting places that require 900k mortgage. If they are, theyre either over extending themselves or making more than you. 