I did mostly mean it in that weasly-way. My main point is that if you can afford the mortgage, you can afford the house, you don't need to be able to make a cas

I did mostly mean it in that weasly-way. My main point is that if you can afford the mortgage, you can afford the house, you don't need to be able to make a cash payment for it to afford it. Housing is for sure becoming very difficult to afford even by that definition in a lot of places (and it's not particularly reasonable that even if you can, that housing should take up such a large fraction of your lifetime earnings).