re: How long did you work before Having down payment for house?

Dude if you're living in San Mateo paying $2,700 you're not in that bad of shape. Buying a house on the peninsula is impossible unless you have tech money or something. Especially in San Mateo, you're competing against all those high earners in Silicon Valley. Why not move across the SM bridge and commute everyday?

Buying a house in a decent part of the Bay Area is tough for middle income earners that aren't born & raised here. I live in Berkeley and a decent single family house--say 3BR/2BA on a very small lot--runs $1M+. When people our age are ready to buy, they either move to a different city (outside the Bay Area--like the wave of family-starting aged people moving to Sacramento right now), or you move to the suburbs like Brentwood

About 5-6 years. It wasn't easy affording a house in the Carter years. If Reagan hadn't been elected I don't know how long it would have taken

Yeah I hear you. Basically the only way I can see buying a house in your area is if you come in to a bunch of cash. Save what you can now because every little bit helps, but you can really make up some ground if you have options, etc. in your company and they do well (or you change jobs to a start up and it takes off)--something crazy like that. At least that's the only way I can figure that people our age can afford to buy in that area. But then it comes to asking yourself if you really want to invest all your money in a house in that area--so many other investment vehicles to consider. All case and point as to why people are saying frick it and moving elsewhere

interned every summer and my last spring semester, lived in an apartment with a roommate for a year after i graduated then made a 10% down payment on 232k at 24

Bought my first house a couple of years before the recessions back then lenders were writing mortgages blind.

It was the peak of the go go aughts.

Given the numbers, I think you should be able to save around to 60k a year. You should be fine in a few years. Again meet with a financial advisor. They will help clarify things tremendously.

built my first house at age 24-

worked hard as a teenager and all the way through college
Saved like crazy- but was not starving

It is about priorities

I've lived in several different places in the U.S. I now live in the midwest where home prices are vastly more affordable overall than say DC or NYC where we looked before.

We have never bought a home because we just never had the 20% and it's kept us from buying. We never applied or knew what we needed.

We couldn't figure out where people are getting the 20% on $850,000 homes. Spoiler alert: They aren't.

We will likely buy a $250,000-300,000 in suburb St. Louis in next two years and we are starting to save...married for 2 months now.

We are going to try and pay off all residual debt and save a solid $50-75K. Then hope for the best.

People say you can get a house with like 5% but that interest rate and PMI is not something I'm interesting in taking on.

Owning a home and creating value (improvement) takes money and it will be vastly more money than we pay in rent for 1400 sqft condo right now...$1200

My wife works in medical so they get $

~6 months