While I technically could have afforded to buy a house, month-to-month living would've required a pretty strict budget and also for me to stop aggressively paying off my other debts - car loan, student loans, a medical bill, etc. Generic, general financial advise for money management is that debt should be paid down first, and then savings should be built. Now, I admit I don't follow this 100% as I'm not comfortable without some kind of "emergency fund" in cash, but as a whole I subscribe to that idea and it's sound. The longer you have debts the more interest you pay and the more it costs you, and there's no way typical savings can accrue enough interest to offset that. So, debts first, saves more money in the long run. What I'm trying to say here is that the $600/month that is not going towards the mortgage I didn't get, would not and could not intelligently have been turned into $600 worth of savings each month. I doubt that most Americans, especially the under-35 age group who have dealt with the increase in student loans and indebtedness, have situations that are much different from mine. Even paying off my debts as aggressively as I do it'll be 5 years before I project to end my student loans, and that is only about $15k of debt. American consumerism encourages a lifestyle of debt. Choosing not to take on even more debt via a mortgage doesn't mean that you suddenly have free money, it just means that your money can go to those other places you owe it. Debt is one very accepted lifestyle here nowadays.