Hi Mustache community. First post here. Been reading MMM for a long time and have a specific question about our financial situation.
Wife and I are young, no kids, never owned a home (renting now, $950/mo). We are currently 8-12 months (best and worst case scenarios) from being 100% debt free. Since graduating college and getting real jobs, we have had one car payment and our student loans. Car has been done for a while, loans are ALMOST DONE!!!!
We have a small nest egg, 5mo living expenses. Both of our jobs are very secure. We typically have $2500/mo left over after living expenses (roughly 1/3 of our gross income). For the past couple years, this has gone directly into our loans, even though minimum loans payments total to something like $700/mo. These figures include maxing out 401k and HSA.
Current plan is to pay down all student loans, spend 2 years or so saving a downpayment for a house (gunning for about $40-50k), then going for it. Houses in our area that we want would push $250-300k. Some friends (albeit over NYE drinks...) would not let up that we're making a mistake and should buy now to start building home equity and that interest rates and home prices are all rising. Buy sooner than later. Throttle back a bit on student loans and focus on getting into a house. What are your thoughts?
Thanks.
EDIT: Additional details. We hope to move into our new home and live there forever. We are looking to settle and are in the area we hope to stay forever.