Good thread, I like reading the wisdom in here. Here’s my two cents. I’m 38, good job, nothing crazy. Live in a house now valued over $1 million. My wife and I bought in 2011, a nice 2,000 square foot for $248k. Thought that was a lot, but we got a good mortgage rate and it was really quite affordable. Was looking for more space as our third child is growing up and we’re working remotely some of the time. Bought a house around the corner for $689k last year, simultaneously sold our other house for $499.9k, rolled all the equity into the new one. Again, it was way more than I thought we’d ever buy, it with the low mortgage rates it was affordable. Now we’re valued at over $1million. I agree that it’s crazy, but perhaps you can view it as a bit self-perpuating: I could afford the crazy high $695k because I sold my other house at a crazy high $499k.
love the thoughts on not being so busy so as to not have time to enjoy anything, good thing to watch out for as the treadmill of day to day can start moving pretty fast.