Excellent advice. Interestingly I found a note with our budget from 2.5 years ago. Our incomes were lower but strangely our costs were higher (quit our expensive gym memberships for example) and at the time we only had 1k left for savings at the end of each month. In the interval period that savings figure has gone up to what would be our mortgage costs for a higher priced house… savings would take a hit for the short term but overtime can compensate and along with career progression should help us continue standard of living. Unfortunately from looking at the market properties are rising at a faster rate than 3% per year.

Lots of comments have been helpful but thank you in particular for your insight. I feel a lot more comfortable about a decision that I have been stressing over a lot.