IF housing is cyclical and IF you buy it at the bottom or when it start to trend up, I think I will stretch a little to buy. Obviously, stretch for me might be very different than stretching for other since I max out my 401k and Roth. Stretching for me would be only saving 500-1000 month in cash after all expenses instead of $2k/month. Those people do make a good point though. If you’re young and you believe your salary will go up not only because of inflation but because you advance in your career, what you think is a stretch now might not be a stretch in 5 years. That’s just my 2 cents.