Plus the cost of houses which will definitely go up

2008 would like a word. House prices absolutely do go down. They rose for a long time but recently they are again beginning to fall.

Median home price in the US peaked at $479,500.00 in 2022. By Q3 2023 it was down to $431,000.00. In Q3 2024 we reached $420,000.00.

Case-Shiller seems to disagree that home prices are still below 2022 levels: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA

Ah yeah fair. The numbers I quoted are median and I don’t have the source. They are from a quick search of financial news. Your index numbers are probably a more sound comparison of overall house prices.

But even using the index numbers it isn’t hard to see that housing prices do in fact go both up and down.

They are not going down because of lack of inventory. Look at commercial, some properties had an 80% discount. But that requires that supply overwhelms demand. It’s not happening with regular housing.

Estimation considers that as my career started 13 years ago and we can see how home prices are today

No, those are considered. That $2,500/mo is at the bottom of your career. You will be saving more as you age, even accounting for employment gaps.

If we are considering kids, presumably there is another partner (and income) to be added to the equation. While you may have half the amount saved due to the cost of raising children, your partner would have the other half.

8% was chosen to discount 3% inflation (cost of living) from SnP 500’s average 11% growth.