Here are my responses to your critiques:

- PMI costs between 0.2% and 2% of purchase price per year, so for a $431k home that could be as little as $72 or much as $720; and you'll need to pay it until your LTV drops below 80%. Plus, PMI protects the lender who would be made whole if you default. However, the PMI carrier can then turn around and sue you for their loss.

- I agree that 1% is high relative to my experience (which is sub-0.5%), but this is a widely accepted number so I used it as a conservative estimate. I disagree with the statement that most people do their own repairs. Very few people I know do their own roof repairs, gutter repairs, plumbing repairs, etc.

- From my experience, lenders look at both front-end and total debt-to-income ratios, with 28% for the former and 36% for the latter. I do agree that lenders have, especially before 2008, been far more flexible on these, but more recently it's been harder to get approvals for high-ratio loans.

- Regarding reserves, at least all the lenders I've worked with required proving reserves for our primary residence. This could be because we're both self-employed, but if I recall correctly it was also the case before I became self-employed.

- From what I'm seeing now, there are some markets where prices are dropping, and many markets where they're stagnating or slightly decreasing. Given how unaffordable housing has become, I'd be surprised (though not shocked) if prices increase by more than inflation over the coming 12 months. However, as physics Nobel laureate Nils Bohr once quipped, "Making accurate predictions is very difficult, especially about the future."

- I agree that people can refi as rates decrease if they buy now at today's high rates.