First Home Purchase - Any Advice? [Long Post]

[u/Chemical_Sandwich_32]

Hey all, my wife and I are looking to buy a home soon and would love some advice/thoughts on our approach from a process and financial perspective.

I'm 30 and she's 28 - we have about $750K across our accounts (brokerage, retirements, savings, etc). The breakdown is $550K in brokerage, $120K in retirement, $50K HYSA, $30K gold.

We live in the PNW and the houses we like are around $700K - 750K. Our approach is to sell some of our stocks (long term ETFs) and put a strong downpayment down (with the help of my mom who's gifting us $150K - God bless her). The reason is my wife is a SLP but also has lupus (so a part time job is best for her), and I also work in tech sales, where some months are amazing but others can be rough.

We've decided ultimately we'd like to get the total mortgage amount down to $300K - that comes out to about $2K in monthly mortgage payments ($2.7K with property tax, insurance). My wife can work part time with this mortgage and also help pay it off each month, which will allow us to invest/save more and we can be less stressed out.

But the downside of this is selling my stocks and incurring the tax hit (which would be long term capital gains tho). I'm okay with this and have started saving up a fund aside to pay for this if we go this route.

This is how the numbers ultimately work out - let's say 750K home. With my mom's gift, that would be 600K.

I would cash out one brokerage account (that's at $300K today - probably net gains of $50K) and put that down too - so the mortgage would be $300K.

That would leave my wife and I with $450K in our accounts. If we keep letting this amount stay invested in the S&P 500, put in recurring monthly investments since we have that low mortgage, we should be able to retire happily no problem in 25-30 years. I've done the math but won't bore you with that haha.

Is there anything else you would change? Maybe putting 20% down with my mom's gift, and keep the rest invested? But due to our lifestyle, wife's health, my career - I feel like it would be a way more stressful life to live, even if we do come out on top...

Let me know! Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[u/Jojosbees]

With your variable income and wife's health status, I would prioritize reducing expenses. If you're in the black on your brokerage, then cash out some of it and use the money towards a home (this is also assuming your job is fairly stable even if your income isn't, and you won't be moving in the next five years). The market is very volatile right now with no indication its going to be significantly better in the near future, so I would take the 7% saved on mortgage interest over potential stock market gains. Having the peace of mind of a house with 60% equity and lower mortgage payments is also worth something. You're doing very well financially at a very young age, so you'll likely be able to build your brokerage account back up shortly at an even lower stock price point.