Definitely agree - we did a lot of work on this house that we're currently in so some went to that, and we're 32 years old so haven't had a lot of time to really accumulate yet. My income before these three years was much closer to just the base income.

Definitely not trying to buy as much house as humanly possible. The homes where we live are very expensive - the $1.6mn house I gave as a theoretical example gets you ~3-4 bed, 3 bath type home, not brand new.

I guess that's a good point that I may just have to hold more liquid assets than someone would normally at my age in order to defend against the potential volatility.

Thanks for your insight.