"Renting a crappy 2BR apartment was $1700/month thanks to the tight rental market. Mortgage and taxes on a townhouse in a nicer part of town? $1200/month."
So you take a mortgage and you're happy and there is a chance that you'll stay happy because your present reckoning may remain as good in the future as it is now. But it also may not. By mortgaging you become a sitting duck against the change, and that rental business of $1700/month seems attractive enough to invite further involvement and development thus driving the prices much lower not only compared to its current figure but also with the praised rental figure. What would you do then if this happens? Refinance in order to stretch that mortgage for more than 30 years?
So you take a mortgage and you're happy and there is a chance that you'll stay happy because your present reckoning may remain as good in the future as it is now. But it also may not. By mortgaging you become a sitting duck against the change, and that rental business of $1700/month seems attractive enough to invite further involvement and development thus driving the prices much lower not only compared to its current figure but also with the praised rental figure. What would you do then if this happens? Refinance in order to stretch that mortgage for more than 30 years?