Also, in your monthly mortgage calculations, if that is your absolutely upper budget? If so, you might need to add a little extra breathing room for unplanned expenses. For example, what if you need to replace a window, fix a leak, etc.? You should consider setting aside a certain extra monthly budget for this so that you don’t get surprised.

Although a 50 year interest only mortgage might work now, I’d say this is probably no better than renting. I would actually suggest that it might even be worse! Consider this: you’re succeptible to interest rate increases (which as you’ve seen from this article they can quickly increase you’re monthly payments), you have to cover all repair expenses, etc. All this and at the end of the term you still don’t own the property! Sure with inflation the real price of the house will drop, but you have to be comfortable with a lot of initial risk for that reward.

It’s possible that buying is not the best option for you right now. Sometimes renting is advantageous. You’ll find online a lot of article that debate renting versus buying, and I mean a lot! This is expected, especially in a hot market. When a real estate market reaches it’s peak, it’s often better to rent than to own simply because the numbers no longer make sense. Not always, but generally. If you want to read a good article about renting versus buying you can find one here at TheStreet.com that I found very good at explaining what to look for.