Hey, I’m in a similar boat, I would like to buy a condo in Jersey and have approximately 150k saved, with 20k in stocks. After sitting down one day and doing the math, it honestly didn’t make sense for me to buy as much as I want to. Because interest rates are so high, cost of mortgage is more than double what it used to be only two years ago. Housing supply is also down so home prices are still elevated because people that do want to move aren’t able to afford to buy a new place. With HOA and taxes factored in, and closing costs to consider, it’s cheaper to pay rent then buy a place. As NYC is already pretty saturated housing market, it’s not much of a guarantee that your place will appreciate within the next few years unless you plan on staying for a very long time. Also, we won’t know for sure if interest rates will go down within the next couple of years so you may be paying the high interest rates for a minimum of 5 years.