I know you can't predict the market, but buying with a 3.5% down payment and paying PMI for a couple years rather than waiting until we'd saved up 20% was probably the smartest thing we did. It's a pretty massive difference when you're looking at ~$400k houses and not one that could have been made up for in a few years by brown bagging lunch to work.

We bought in 2018 and then refinanced to get rid of PMI when prices peaked in 2020... if we'd stayed in our apartment and kept saving money, I literally wouldn't be able to afford to buy the house I'm living in today.