The house price for midwest looks quite high unless you live in Chicago.
I live in Ohio and I have a HUGE house for less than 400k (352k in 2005).
The mortgage payment listed should include:
Property taxes
Principal
Interest
House Insurance for much less than $2600. What interest rate did you assume on the $2600? Mine is 5.75%, I put less than 20% down, and my monthly payment is less than $2600 including all 4 items above.
Here is what I would do:
1) make sure you are setting aside 15% of gross income for retirement- 401ks or IRAs.
2) make sure you are making the minimum payments on the debts (student loans?)- what is interest rate?
3) set aside money in a taxable account for purposes of house. This fund should have 3 components:
- an emergency fund for 3 months expenses
- a fund to furnish and close on the house
- a fund to create the down payment on the house
If 1+2+3 will take more than 5 years to accomplish, I would look for a 40-60 or other moderate mutual fund to hold most of the investment (EF should be in cash). If this takes more than 5 years you need to consider a few other factors
1) compare rent to cost of cheap condo
2) compare the cost of cheap condo to savings plan above (include new tax breaks in the comparison-condo will increase take home pay)
3) compare condo maintaince costs to house maitainance costs
You might find a condo gives you enough incentive to wait 10 years for house purchase (because you build equity in condo and gain tax writeoffs too), without huge maintaince costs until kids come or larger house is purchased.