Don't consider this financial advice by any means, but more life advice: anything you spend money on should be something you couldn't be happy without, as long

Don't consider this financial advice by any means, but more life advice: anything you spend money on should be something you couldn't be happy without, as long as purchasing it doesn't ruin your life later. Money is only a means to basic resources; anything above that is just consumerism. So rather than buying the nicest house "because you can" or "because later it might be worth more when I sell it and I'll get more money", don't consider the finances at all, other than "can I afford it?" What I'm saying is, find a house you and your fiance (and whatever plans you may or may not have for... other people living there in the future) can be happy in, that you can afford, and go with that, regardless of whether it's the fanciest house you can afford or not. That "dream house" -- is it really a dream house if, as you said, it would interfere with other life goals that may be more important to you? Or is it just a "fancy house" that looks nice and comfy but has strongly diminishing returns on the utility curve? Think of it this way: if you buy a big fancy house, you may make more money selling it later in life. If you buy a more modest house, you will have more money now. So either option leaves you with money, it's just a matter of what you'd do with that extra money now vs later. If you have life goals that are important to you, and that would cost money short-term, buy the smaller place. If all your goals are long-term only and you won't need to pay for them until decades down the line, then sure, go for the fancy house.