Owner. Our mortgage payment is about 25% of our household income. No way I'd be able to afford this joint on my own; my wife will always have to work in some capacity. Fortunately my wife makes more money than me. For now. I have no trust in her industry.

We live in the most affordable area of a very unaffordable region. Had I not had a VA loan and/or if we decided to live one town/county over - forget about it.

Edited to add: we bought new construction but not a cookie cutter tract home. The guy who built it fell into a medical coma and the family had to unload (we were unaware of this) so we negotiated the place well under value. And since it's new, I'll eventually have to pay into maintenance and upkeep. But currently we are good. Good enough to a point where I'm debating going solar since it's obvious our government will never mandate it.