I didn't read the other post, but it may be due to their property taxes and insurance price going up, which is happens and is inevitable.

Or it could be they got an adjustable rate mortgage while rates were crazy low and now that rates have come back up, their interest rate is rising. This doesn't happen with fixed rate mortgages, but the adjustable ones tend to have a lower initial rate and people just hope they will be in a position to refinance if the adjustable rate gets out of hand, though that depends on several factors and may involve paying several thousand in fees.

I personally am happy with the post and happy to answer, just warning you it might get deleted and you might not get as many opinions as you hope.

1. This post might get taken down as a survey question which is against guidelines.

2. In a perfect world, a down payment large enough to avoid pmi also proves you are good enough at squirling away funds that you can be certain you will be able to squirrel away funds for all the $10k house emergencies that occur every few years.

The fact is though we don't live in a perfect world and skyrocketing rents and housing prices for many means waiting for that 20% is unrealistic.

Its riskier, but if you feel confident in your budgeting, your job, and your desire to stay put at least 5 years, and you are in an area where prices are continously rising quickly, then getting in as soon as you qualify for anything is just a risk you have to take.

That really depends on two things.

If you would rather pay income tax on those employer contributions this year or in some future year. Basically if you think you will be in a lower tax bracket now or later.

And if you think your income will ever be large enough that you will no longer be able to directly contribute to a Roth IRA and will want to use the "backdoor" method. (currently $140kish for single and $220kish for married) if you think you will use the backdoor someday, the existence of an old traditional IRA complicates things.

I assume your previous employer had some sort of contribution matching. Something like if you put in at least 3% of your paycheck, they will match with another 3% of extra money.

While you chose to make your contributions Roth(after tax), employer contributions are always traditional(pre tax).

These funds have to go into the correct types of accounts. Traditional into traditional and Roth into Roth or you will make a mess of your taxes.