I live in Cali, one of the HCOL areas that people bitch about. My first home was 400k in 2019 at age 24. My wife and I made a little over 100k combined and the first time homebuyer program in Cali made it so that we could buy whatever home we wanted as long as it passed inspection. The state kicked in the 20k down and we just covered closing costs. We refinanced a year later and dissolved any state loans. The state gave us a loan that had 0% interest and only required that we simply pay it back or it dissolved after 20 years. Being poor isn’t cheap, but a lot of expensive states actually have help. You pay taxes in those states for a reason, use it. There was no increased interest, PMI is minuscule by comparison, my mortgage is still hundreds under friends apartment rent and I have 4 times the bedrooms, double the bathrooms and actual land.