I am at one of the lowest salary steps for my classification, my income will keep going up but will hit a ceiling in a few years if i don't get a professional certification (studying now) My spouse does stay home but he will enter the workforce when all our kids are in full time school. My 2 younger kids will need to go to preschool, probably part time, in a year or two. They need the social development

Thank you! This is really helpful. We do have really good credit so I think we will get a good PMI rate. What concerns me is a higher monthly payment due to a lower down payment with the cost of living going up (groceries, preschool, etc) . I am wondering if we would pay more in the long run on interest than any tax hit we'd get on our IRA's if we put 20% down.

Would it be more advisable to put less than 20% down then? Seems like the longer we wait, the more housing costs keep going up.