Maintenance cost likely scales with both size and cost. Size, for obvious reasons, and cost because the labor/materials cost of a repair is likely correlated wi

Maintenance cost likely scales with both size and cost. Size, for obvious reasons, and cost because the labor/materials cost of a repair is likely correlated with housing prices in the area. You then have to account for the portion of cost that's already correlated with size... +1 to mortgage length. We heavily pivoted our decision to buy on getting a 7 year ARM because my friend and I knew we wouldn't grow old together there (wanting to do things like get married and have our own families). A time bomb on the mortgage was a feature, for us, and a cost savings.