Most of us make much less earlier on that we do later in our careers. As a result, it would follow that younger buyers are going to be spending a larger portion of their income than they would later on to purchase the same home.

The issue as I see it is not being “house poor” as a couple in your 20s because you’re spending 25% of your income on housing. This to me is normal because if you’re doing it right you’ll never earn less than you do in your 20s. And most of our parents were also house poor in their 20s when they made their first home purchase.

To me the issue comes from continually selling your house, cashing out the equity (both principal pay down and appreciation) and using it to start a new loan on a much more expensive house that takes the same portion of your income (or more) that the first house did. This keeps you house poor and increases the likelihood that you’ll rely on debt later on to finance the parts of your lifestyle (travel, RVs, kids college, etc) that you can’t afford to pay cash for.

We stretched ourselves to purchase our current house because we didn’t want to have to move again. At age 30 we reasoned that with toddlers running around it’s not like we’d be doing any world traveling for several years anyway. We are still able to save a lot, pay a full tithe and contribute to an early-ish retirement but we don’t have tons of extra money flying around for lavish nights out or world vacations. To me that’s a decent trade off if in 5-10 years when my kids are older and I’m making 25-50% more than I do now I don’t go out and upgrade just for the sake of upgrading.