1. If school is dependent on zone, that's your answer. If not, then appetite for commuter pain will dictate proximity to school.
2. Are you decided for sure on staying in a HCOL locale? There are periphery of urban core choices near good cultural opportunities all over. And if you are talking about one of the outrageous cost cities, ANY other metro will FIRE you much sooner....something to consider.
3. Rent is plastic in the sense that it is very credit rate dependent....and if the landlord is highly leveraged, he/she will be forced to raise rents commensurate with the gradual steady increases in commercial loans I foresee.
4. If you can, in a few years, save the cash to buy a home you will be happy with, vs mortgage a home for 30 years, why would you NOT work and save and make a cash purchase? There are MANY other associated costs with originating a loan that you will avoid by paying cash, and if you choose, you can actually buy a home which does not qualify for a mortgage at a great cash discount. This doesn't mean you will have to paint or swing a hammer, but you can make value-added to a real estate purchase by swooping in with cash and then hiring the skilled trades needed to make it what you want. In many places, if you live in the place full time as your primary residence for a year after the certificate of occupancy (CO) is issued for the dwelling, then you can act as your own general contractor (GC) and save about 12% on the renovation.
5. The FIRE date is not, to my thinking, the date at which you can eek out a scratch survival just so you say you are no longer working, but is the date at which you can live the lifestyle which will make you deeply contented and satisfied that you have attained the "dream" you are sacrificing for.
6. The closer you get to the endpoint, the more you will likely want to remove/reduce risk that an uncontrolled variable thwarts you. Buying a home at a set cost and a fixed interest rate removes that element of risk.
7. You will never be unexpectedly forced to move from your nice, warm rental unit into a new drafty cold house in winter! Ha!!
8. I think there is nothing to stop rents from rising in the US. The cost of housing is rising, the cost of financing that housing is rising, and the pent-up demand for housing is rising. There are MANY MANY people in the nation living in "extended housing" (on mom's basement couch, etc), and they would enter the housing market if they had the option. On the other hand, monthly mortgage payments drive housing prices, and if mortgage interest rates rise, then the price of homes will stagnate or possibly even sink. Rents, much less so, and may even rise (see #3 above).
9. You want to live a good life? Find a medium sized college town city (200,000 population) with a large university and within 1 1/2 hours of a big airport, where the housing market is fairly cheap. That will give you educated culture, and access to the outside world with cost-contained flights, and will give you the option to take on a new avocation or vocation based on the buzz surrounding a university. Ann Arbor Michigan would be an example. So would several places in Texas. And Atlanta, Georgia. And right where MMM lives in Colorado. If airports don't matter to you, Columbus would be a good choice.
10. The crux of the decision for you and your spouse and daughter revolves around your defined priorities. The FIRE answers are simpler when you have a goal to attain. An exercise in detailed pipe-dreaming, examination of values for what you want your FIRE life to be, and decisions based on the necessity of geographic location are foremost. Decide what you want, and then connecting the dots to get there will be a checklist, not an meandering, mindbending trip into a chiasm void of obsfuscating enigmas.
Tranquilo. May all your problems remain first-world problems.
-Landslave
