My wife and I have a toddler and another baby due in October. We have been in a 1 Bedroom apartment ($1500 a month, very low for our area, "nice places" are around 2,500 to 3k for a 1bedroom) for many years, and live in a very expensive area. We'd like to have more space. My job is the only thing keeping us here. We are in need of a larger place to live, but 2BRoom rentals go for about $2000-2400 a month (for same "quality" of our current place). We are looking into purchases as well, but that will require at least 80K down payment and a mortgage (principle/taxes/interest) of about $2500. (this is our max we have set for ourselves to return ~15% of my income per month to savings.)
we have no debt, max my 401k, and have put 10K into a 529 for our child the past two years....
My question is. Do we keep renting in this expensive area, and never buy a home, or jump in, buy a home that's further away and would require a 2nd car, and sell it when we get our savings to a point we can start making money off of the (average) 7% it would make in stocks? and move to a cheaper area, with new or (hopefully) no jobs...
I feel like we are on the cusp of a decision that could either make or break us from retiring earlier than 65!!!
I'd be interested in general advise on these types of situations, if you need to know more about what money's we have were to make an official call I can update this main post.
Thanks!