Anonymous wrote:homebuying is the best chance most americans have of accumulating wealth. they get to buy an appreciating asset with 20% or less down, with huge tax benefits on the financing. so, the larger the asset, the higher it grows. I think you should always buy to the very upward limits of your comfort factor, with the idea being you don't trade up houses later on. the transaction costs kill you ...

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Anonymous wrote:$4,000.

Remember that most people who respond to these threads are VERY conservative financially, so expect to hear low numbers.

If by conservative, you mean people who like to max out 2 sets of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, save for college, have adequate emergency savings, then yes, people who post on these threads are very conservative.

Not the PP, but what I mean when I call most of the posters on this board VERY conservative is that there are a lot of people who make choices in the name of being "safe" or "careful" that are in fact "stupid."

When is buying a less expensive home so that you can have extra cash on hand a "stupid" financial decision ?

Is this supposed to be rhetorical? The answer is "often." By your logic, the least stupid financial decision is to never purchase a home. Clearly anyone who does own a home has made a decision that there is some portion of their cash that is better tied up in a house than in cash in hand. The question in this thread is just where that line is.

Sending too little money on a home is too conservative and spending too much money on a home is too risky. The line is somewhere in the middle, but some people on DCUM don't seem to get that it is a balancing act in either direction. They like to say things like "err on the side of caution" or "better safe than sorry," when that analysis makes no sense when you are trying to hit a mid-point. There is no basis for viewing "too risky" as a vice but "overly conservative" as a virtue. They are both bad.

I also think there's something a little pompous and close-minded about accusing people who are comfortable spending more money on their mortgage as being reckless fools. Of course there is a point where spending becomes overspending and extreme overspending becomes reckless. But really all folks on here are saying when they shout about recklessness is "this person is listing a number that to me would feel like it is hard to do." Then when the poster responds "I have in fact lived on those numbers and it works for me" are responding by saying in the fact of direct evidence that they are wrong "well, you must be reckless and headed for disaster."

Seems similar to calling people who chose to be conservative with their financial decisions "stupid".