A 31% total DTI with $15,000 still in the bank after closing is a comfortable position, well clear of anything we would call stretched. The word stretched gets thrown around loosely, so it helps to separate the two numbers we actually weigh: - DTI tells you whether the monthly payment fits your income. It says nothing about what happens if that income stops, whether from a job loss or a disability without adequate insurance behind it. - Cushion after closing, measured in months of payments, is the number that covers those scenarios. In your case, $15,000 against a payment in the low $3,000s is roughly five months of housing payments in reserve, a reasonable buffer. The profile that makes us uneasy is the opposite one: a borrower pushed up around 45% DTI who closes with a week or two of spending money left. That is genuinely thin, because a single disruption leaves no runway. More reserves are always better, but your numbers lean conservative, and you are nowhere near that danger zone. The honest test of stretching is whether you could absorb a few months of trouble without losing the house. Five months of reserves says you probably could.