Don't buy a house with an HOA.
I never understand making payments on the house you own.
I have seen homes with inexpensive HOAs that cover water, sewage, etc., and that is fine--until they claim your house without warning.
HOAs don't necessarily have the manpower to snoop around looking for infractions, so they hire one company to ruin them all, and it uses satellite technology and drones to find violations in side and back yards, etc.
When I was looking at places in Mesa recently I found mobile homes that were surprisingly cheap, but they didn't come with the land, and HOA fees were crazy.
I wondered in what situations a tiny house would make sense and he just said not to buy mobile homes, they don't appreciate because there is limited demand for them.
He said he would rather see her renting while saving up for 20% down on a full-sized house to pay off in 15 years--or less--or save up to pay in cash.
I don't think he is in contact with reality.
I complained a few years ago about the difficulty of saving up for a down payment while homes continue to appreciate.
If you can save $10,000 annually and the inflation rate is 3% then it would take 5 years and 5 months to have the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $50,000 now.
With $8,000 in savings and 3% inflation it would take 7 years.
What if you save $50,000 down in 5-8 years, but don't have the $2,018 monthly?
What if you can only afford $1,549?
Mr. Bossy pants says to pay rent indefinitely until you can put down 41% and afford the payments to pay it off in 15 years?
If you can save $10,000 annually it would take just over 12 years, so it would still take you 27 years without further setbacks!
Ten thousand dollars would be 4% down, enough to qualify for many mortgages, you would just need mortgage insurance.
BankRate doesn't estimate that.
They show 6.91% for 15 and 30 years.
Zillow shows 5.708%, but I don't know if that is possible anymore.
I adjusted the other fees to total $1,549 for 30 years.
Zillow says that if you put 3.5% down you will have $197 in mortgage insurance and with the extra principal the payment is now up to $2,018.
Once you have 20% equity you can make the mortgage insurance go away, but the payments would still be $1,821.
So, a smaller down payment only works if you have a higher income.
If you have a higher income you won't have as much difficulty saving for a down payment.