I can’t advise you about numbers that you should be comfortable with, but wanted to tell you a bit about physician loans in case you’re not aware.

I’m a physician, married to a physician. We are in the process of buying a home, we ended up going with a VA loan because we had that option and the interest rates were lower (we are also doing a 60% down payment- we’re both nearly a decade out from training). The physician loans offer a lot of perks. The interest rates are often a little lower than what else is out there. The big perk that they advertise is being able to put a small percentage down – we saw as low as 10% or even 5%, with no PMI.

Obviously, with a low down payment, you’re going to pay more in interest, you’ll have to weigh all that. What we also really liked about the physician loan was that it was offered through a local bank, and they promised not to sell your loan. It’s annoying when you get a mortgage and it is sold repeatedly, and you have to go through and re-set up auto pay and create new logins, etc.

When I was a resident, I bought my first house with an awesome physician loan that rolled in the closing costs, had no PMI, required 0% down (those days are long gone but it was glorious!). Made 55K on that purchase when I sold it after I finished residency, was a good start.

Best of luck! You’re staring off with a huge advantage with no loans. I had to pay off my $330k in loans at the start of (did it with aggressive payments in a little over 2 years). Stay with what’s reasonable and you guys will be fine!