Hello. My fiancee works in finance and makes $40,000 gross per year. I am a 2nd-year medical student. Currently, we live in a bungalow that costs $650/month and have no outstanding credit card debt or car payments. We are planning to move when I begin residency; at that point, I will be making $50,000/year, for a combined income of around $100,000 at that point. My question is, in what price range should we be looking for a house? My income as an M.D. resident will be $50,000/yr, as I stated, but that is for 4 years. After those 4 years, my income will instantly jump to $300,000/yr. Also, the reason we initially purchased such an inexpensive house (our bungalow) is so that we could save money in the meantime for a larger down payment on our next house. Thus, we should be able to put down around $25,000 on whatever house we purchase next. I will have around $200,000 in student loan debt, but I can certainly select a monthly payment plan that will make my payments quite minimal during my residency.

Finally, my medical school offers me $20,000 in loans for living expenses each year (at 8% interest). I always decline all of it, but I was wondering whether I should take some of that out during my last year of medical school in order to produce a higher down payment. However, I've suspected that may not make sense because then, when we go to apply for the loan, the bank will just see that I have a larger amount of loan debt and be less willing to offer us a large home loan - correct? Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.