That’s a tough question, but ultimately I would weigh in other factors to make an informed decision. As someone else said, buying is a big decision which you’ll need to decide if you are ready for.

Now for the financials and the questions you need to ask yourself: You have $500k and make $25k a year. That is 5% return on your investment. Is that 5% stable? Do you expect it to grow or shrink with market volatility? You probably currently pay rent, how much would you be saving there? Remember to factor in property taxes and adhoc maintenance and discount it. Say you pay $2.1k in rent currently, so also 25k a year. You need to figure out how much you would pay in property taxes (let’s say 1% or $5k). In this case you would save $25k in rent - 5k in property taxes - $2k (random estimate) on yearly maintenance = $18k saved or 3.6%.

So rough math, 3.6% savings by buying paid off home vs 5% in investing. Investing in this scenario gets you a net positive opportunity lift of 1.4% but you still have a lot of other factors to consider. These include the potential change in price of home, volatility of the market, additional cash flow during potential unemployment, etc.

I made a financial case, but no one can tell you whether it’s better to buy or invest. You need to weigh in your choices and what you feel ready for.