Although your home is an asset, if you’re buying right now it may be best to not view it as a financial investment.

We bought a home around ~400k knowing that it could go down in value, but building a family and having a place with a yard and proximity to decent schools/other things was enough of a benefit that we’re not really concerned about our home as a means of improving our finances. Of course, we need to be able to afford it, and we are on a much lower income than you, but we also scored a pretty good mortgage rate a few months ago.

That said, I did sacrifice certain things. Not in love with the style/architecture of the home. A little older than preferred, etc.

My suggestion is to really nail down what your absolute needs are and to be a little flexible on things that ultimately aren’t that important (aesthetics). We’re really happy with our purchase overall even if there were some things we could have done differently. We’re also fortunate to have spent less than we budgeted so we’re doing a few upgrades around the house where we’re able.

(Don’t skip inspections. We didn’t ask for any corrections, but we were comfortable with the results of our inspection even though a few things needed fixing.)