Right now, I'm looking at homes that are 2.3 - 3x my annual gross salary?
What are your %'s and do you believe in the "buy as much house as you can philosophy?
Any regrets...one way or another---i.e. should have gone up, down, etc.
When we bought our house in December 2006, the mortgage was 2.42x our salary. The housing expenses were over twice our rental expenses (including utilities, taxes, etc.) But the quality of life increase was unquantifiable.
At first, we noticed the hit pretty hard. We were never close to missing a payment, but we still felt it. However, we still maxed out my 401K and IRA, eliminated some debt, and stashed some more other places. This year, we should be able to max out my 401K (and I will also start making some Roth 401K contributions), my Roth IRA, her Roth IRA, and pay down a fair amount of debt.
Based on a lot of the calculators I used, we were stretching it with our mortgage payments, but in the end it all worked out well. Now I have a fixed housing payment I know we can afford, and the payments will only get easier as time goes on.
I'd suggest living on your estimated housing budget for a while (saving the extra $$ to apply at closing) to make sure you can afford it. If so, go for it.