re: Homebuyers are now spending 40% of their gross income on mortgage and interest costs

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this is temporary but most people can’t see past their own nose. Interest rates have been so low for so long that a healthy lending environment is alien to the lifestyle most think is “normal”. Debt is not “normal”.

smart people will come in and tell you that “using other people’s money” is the only way to go, because they’ve lived through a generation or more of free money.

Pay as you go, live simply, finance as little as possible and strive for self sufficiency is the way it used to be and for me at least, the key to happiness

My mortgage is long gone not because I’m wealthy but because I didn’t owe very much in the first place

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Very true about the interest rate piece. My generation (born in the 80's) doesn't know anything except cheap money as an adult and it has shaped our financial decisions.

That being said, you have to adjust with the times.

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Pay as you go, live simply, finance as little as possible

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If you did this over the last decade+ then you wasted the most generous lending environment in history and a prime time to acquire assets.

Those times seem to be coming to an end and people will have to adjust accordingly.