The elephant in the room is "other debt". I was always able to live comfortably with mortgage payments that ate up a higher-than-recommended percentage of my income because I had no car payments, SLs, or CC Debt, none of which this dude mentions.
Semi-related question: do lenders look at how much you're loading into your retirement accounts? I wonder if rolling back your contributions to merely match level just ahead of the buying process would allow you to qualify for more?
If you live in a HCOLA, especially if you're not a high wage earner, you often don't have the luxury of "buying something cheaper", because it just doesn't exist and rents are crazy, too. On one hand it sucks sucked, on the other, property appreciation has definitely made it worth the sacrifice over the last thirty years, even through the Great Recession, provided you managed to ride it out. You could, because as a badass mustachian, you still managed to save, despite the high mortgage payment.