My mom is a little above this. I’m making a timeline to purchasing land to build a house because I handle all the household finances (I’m a math person) Notice what I said there. I have no intention of buying an existing home.

I can get a piece of land that is several acres for 50-90k in western MA (we’ve been living and renting in the Boston area due to my father dying and losing that income) and then build a nice house on it for 300-500k and the construction loan for that would be between 1400-1800/mo.

Buying a home outright would run me no less than 3500/mo and we’re currently paying 2375/mo rent. I have no intention of going higher than what we’re paying for rent, especially when only about $500 of that $3500 payment goes to the actual principal. The vast majority is fucking interest. I’ll be paying over a million in interest over 30 years for a 500k home. Which, looking at the market rn, is the price of a severe fixer upper these days.

I’d also like to point out that the 3500 figure was WITH a 200k down payment that it would take us 5 years of pretty rigorous saving to accomplish. I’m talking next to no travel, almost never eating out, or excess spending, etc. My mother worked 25 years in the same place to finally live comfortably but if we want a home, she can’t actually ever enjoy living comfortably.

My mother is close to retirement and moving out west is a big decision because I’m disabled and can’t drive, thus I’ll be isolating myself a lot, but I feel it’ll probably be a worthwhile move for the price. There’s no affordable land in Eastern MA that I can easily find.

It’s amazing that during the pandemic my mother got the promotion that puts us in a comfortable living situation, yet I can’t foresee a future of ever getting a home that won’t require moving to the middle of isolation.

TL:DR Household makes above the median, has no hope of buying a home in the next 5 years. The house we can foresee after 5 years will have to be in the middle of absolute nowhere and built ourselves.