Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited.

How big of a mortgage can I realistically afford?
My primary concerns. There seems to still be a fair bit of distressed property (forclosures etc) on the market at current, which might well keep prices down for the next year or so that it takes to finish flushing that stuff out of the market.  The gist I get from most experts/pundits is that There will be good deals around for while to come still I'd advise you wait.  Go ahead and do the math to figure out what total you WOULD be paying would be, and charge yourself that much a mohth for rent in your current place, pocketing the difference in a savings account.  You'll be able to get a feeling for what it's like to live with that kind of house payment, and if you can do it sans any room-mate (something you can't always count on)  If you can manage it, then you have a much more realistic idea of what you can afford, AND you'll have saved up a bunch of money to help with a down-payment in the process.  If for example your Mortgage plus taxes and insurance ends up running around say $1450 a month, plus another $150 for the HOA, well then, that's charging yourself $1600 a month for your 'rent' which means $1000 per month going into the bank, in two years that's nearly the same as what you have now in the $401K, and you'd have a really good idea if you can afford that much per month in housing costs. If you are bound and determined to do this now, then here's a few other things to consider. You might to shop around a bit to see how typical those HOA fees are.   Yeah you don't have the expense and hassle of needing to mow the lawn, paint the place etc  but still,  150 a month translates to around another 1.5 mortgage payments a year. You might be able to get around PMI by splitting the mortgage into two pieces and doing a 'purchase money second' of around 15-20% and 75-70% of the value for the main mortgage.  That way the LoanToValue on your primary loan is under 80%, which could be worthwhile even if the interest rate on that second loan is a little higher (at least it's deductible, paying PMI is just money lost to you) although trying to do any kind of creative financing these days is a lot trickier