Half your income to housing is aggressive, and we'd want you walking in with eyes open. If your income grows at a typical 2% to 3% a year, it can take five to seven years for that payment to feel manageable instead of tight. People often assume they'll refinance their way out, but nobody can promise where rates go, so counting on a lower payment later is a plan built on something outside your control. Where 50% can genuinely work: real income the tax returns don't yet show. We've had a client whose side tutoring income couldn't be used to qualify but comfortably helped cover the payment in real life. A near-certain, substantial raise on the horizon can play the same role. If one of those is true for you, the ratio on paper overstates the strain. Absent that, we'd be very deliberate before committing half your income to a housing payment. Run your actual budget at that number, assume no refinance ever comes, and see whether the rest of your life still fits. If the plan only works with the refinance, it's probably too much house for right now.