<prompt> Human: Hello PF!Im a little confused as to what the smartest decision is going to be going forward. Ive read a whole lot about PFInvestinghow to deal with money in the past few weeks and I feel like Im getting conflicting advise regarding a decision to jump on purchasing a home.My current financial situation stands as follows:Income:My take home pay is: 2500month already contributing maximum to get employer 401k matchWifes take home pay: roughly 1500month highly variable, she is a bartender but thats a good averageSavings:We have about 15,000 in savings for an emergency fund, but we probably only need about 8,000Debt:Student loan: 7,400 4.66 Student loan: 15,400 3.5I am not yet paying on these, but will have to start here in about 2 months.Current Rent: 900month for 2 bedroom condo good deal, market value is roughly 1,200Im looking mostly at 3-4 bedroom houses in the 250,000-300,000 range mostly looking at 250,000, but have found a few near 300,000 that are way under priced for the market and could easily be refinanced to 350,000 which would allow me to eliminate pmi in a year or so but also some cheaper town homes. I dont have enough in savings to even be considering this kind of purchase but to get around that Im eyeing a first time home buyers assistance program that will give me a grant of 3 of the home value and get a mortgage with said 3 down payment and Id just have to come up with the closing costs, which is doable out of my emergencysavings fund. The payments would end up being about 1500-1600month with taxesinteresetprinciplePMIinsurance. If I were to rent a similar place as this it would probably be about 2,100month.I guess the best financial decision would be to stay at the current 900month condo, but the Wife and I are seemingly outgrowing it maybe we should just get rid of a bunch of shit and are also planning on starting a family in the near future so a bigger place would do wonders to improving our quality of life.But is buying the best bet here? It seems like its by far the best decision, but Im confused as how to proceed with the student loan debt and also risking putting so little down in case the market flips upside down.Thank you so much for your inputEDIT fixed price rangeAssistant: You dont make near the recommended amount to buy a 300k house. As soon as you buy the house you need a good chunk of that extra money in your emergency fund for your new emergency fund to remain the same amount of months of support. You have 22,400 in debt as well. I would honestly be surprised if you were even approved for a mortgage loan of that amount.Rule of thumb for a house is 3X your income. I estimated your combined income to be around 62k before taxes. Which means houses around 180k to 190k. 250k is around 4X your income, and 300k is around 5X your income.Human: Our gross is roughly 70k so close to that. I havent seen the 3X the income rule, thats definitely helpful. I was using random online calculators that took into account gross income, down payment, and required debt payments and they were all saying that I could afford to buy a 310K house. That is at the top end of my budget because I would only consider it if I get a job with a 20k raise I am interviewing for  <response>: Online calculators will always give you the whats the highest amount we could post and not bust out laughing number. 3x is a good rule for max spending on a house. 