House hunting is kicking in to high gear (as in I'm talking to a real estate agent to buy for real and not just searching the web and going oooh that's a house I could afford that might be better to live in than my apartment) which is exciting and stressful and spending that much money in one go is super intimidating and probably partially because of all that I was hyped up last night and couldn't sleep and only got like 2.5 or 3 hours of sleep so I'm really tired now (but know that if I go to bed now then in 2 or 3 hours my body's going to be like, ok that was a nice nap, now what are we going to do).
Cinder, I think owning your own home is probably the best decision you could make. I know it's a risk but in my book, land is a solid. It's like gold. I take that back, gold and silver is kind of arbitrary and unless you have gold (and if you do it's in some kind of stanped coin like thing you spent too much on) you will ALWAYS have to count on a solid economy to realize a gain. Real estate, and I"m talking about dirt here - land, is never a bad investment. It can go upside down, but you are in a unique position when everybody's scared of buyng and prices are on the buyer's side.
In my own case, I kind of fell into my house. My father died and left his all to me and my sister. He had paid about 70% his mortgage and when I figured paying my sister which she was good with, the numbers straightened out and I bought it for about a 25% savings for a good bit of land and a house and barn and better yet I didn't have to move all the stuff. It was horrible in the first 4 years and I thought I was dead in the water, basically land rich dirt poor, especially when things went under water, but now it's much better. You, however, are in a unique position to actually profit for a smart deal which I'm pretty sure you're capable of. Happy hunting.