<prompt> Human: My family wife, 3 kids 531yo is looking to buy our 1st home. I felt pretty confident in our budget plan...until I browsed this site and saw the landslide of comments on various threads encouraging people NOT to buy that house they love, but to be more conservative and stay well within their means. I still think our plan is financially solid, but I want to be sure were planning to spend appropriately for our income. Details below. Please weigh in!Im 30, and make 130kyear. I consider my future employment prospects to be pretty stable, but clearly there are never guarantees. My wife is home with the kids for now, but plans to go back to work once the kids are in school. Again, for now no guarantee of income there. Ive been renting my entire life. Today we rent a house for 2600month and have been able to save 15-20kyear in the last 2 years. We are debt free and have 130k in savings. My goal is to upgrade the house we live in and keep our lifestyle constant without straining our finances.Our ideal house would cost 670k, with prices in the places we want to live seemingly rising by the day. We would put 100k down 15 and finance the rest with a 30yr mortgage. Monthly payments would be roughly 2700month BUT once you add in property taxes, PMI ugh, HOA, insurance youre at 3500month. Add in a 1 monthly fund for maintenance, etc and now youre at 4000month, 1500 more than rent! The only thing working the other way is the tax break for mortgage interest which should offset 300month.Long story short: Our DTI would be 32 depending on what you include, our savings would be mostly invested in the house and I estimate our saving power drops from 20kyear to 8kyear. Is this a reasonable burden? Are we taking on too much house? I didnt think so, but Ive been using the argument that our income is likely to go up and so well eventually be saving significantly again. But if something happens lost job, medical disaster, whatever, theres a chance we cant afford our home. Equally, if you worry about somethings all the time, you can never move forward in life! So what do you say, rpersonalfinance?EDIT: Thanks to everyone for the responses! I expected the blow-back! I dont necessarily agree with it but its good to hear and consider. To add some more details to this discussion:- We live outside Portland, OR. Its not the Bay Area, but housing costs are very high if you want to live somewhere with reasonable schools we have 3 kids so thats a must thats not a 45 minute commute to work. In our geographical constraint, the lowest 4 bed homes starts at 500k. Median houseprice is 535,200 which includes many smaller homes.- The purchase price of the house were renting would be 600k.- The difference between 500k and 670k is 1 age of home, 2 sq footage, 3 modern layout, kitchens and whatnot. Yes we could get a 500k house but it would feel like a downgrade from the rental...- I am against renting for longer. 1 House prices are rising very fast in the pacific NW so additional saving dont do much for me. 2 I simply look forward to ownership the walls I sleep in and it would be a big source of personal pride : - Given the continued population increases in the pacific NW, the rising house prices beyond national averages and long term historical trends, I definitely consider owning a home here a good investment. Of course it has risk, but thats no different than if I asked an investment broker what I should do with 100k in savings at age 30 - invest it and take some risk while youre still youngish!.- We are able to save significantly right now because we live quite frugally, more by choice than anything. We drive simple cars that we own, we dont really eat out, we dont have expensive tastes in clothes or hobbies etc. I dont need that lifestyle to change too much, I just want a nice home to hang out with the family in :- Aside: I contribute 5 to 401k off the top, employer also contributes 5. I am pretty cluesless about retirement but thats a start, right?!- As much as people dismiss this line of thinking, we do have income raises expected. My wife is a smart lady with a good educationemployment history. Shes been off work 2 years by choice, but its reasonable to expect she could get back into the workforce in a reasonable position.- I have a hard time with the plan for the worst case scenario, what happens if you get laid offhit by a busetc argument. I work for a stable employer but of course theres a possibility, however remote, that life just happens. But would it be much less of an issue if we bought a 500k house? Or if we kept renting but the income went to zero and we were using dwindling savings to stay in our home? It feels too conservative to try to plan for the worst case.  <response>: No you really cant afford that much house. The general rule of thumb is to multiply your annual salary by 2 to 3. In HCOL areas you may have to stretch more than that but itll be quite painful. Id look for less house or farther out from your job because you have good income and savings so buying should be in reach, but I wouldnt go over a 500k house with 20 down based on what youve said so far. Also, Id be skeptical that your wife will go back to work. School is a tough schedule to work around and there are so many activities and appointments that itd be tough with 3 kids, never mind her decreased earning power after that long out of the workforce. 