That tax deduction does get smaller every year (as the interest/principal balance changes).
The biggest issue I found with owning is that the equity doesn't build up fast enough at the beginning (with a 30-year mortgage), so if you sell after 10 years the costs pile up to the point that you have almost no net proceeds (5% commission, survey/title/transfer tax/inspections, plus prorated property taxes). A 200K property could easily cost you 20K or more to sell.
The best thing you could do is to put as much down as you can, on as cheap of a property as you can (condo, townhouse), then send in additional principal payments so that you could pay it off in 6 - 10 years. Then you can either put away extra savings after that, or move into a slightly more expensive place (about 60K more than your current house), and start the 6 year cycle over again.
The biggest issue I found with owning is that the equity doesn't build up fast enough at the beginning (with a 30-year mortgage), so if you sell after 10 years the costs pile up to the point that you have almost no net proceeds (5% commission, survey/title/transfer tax/inspections, plus prorated property taxes). A 200K property could easily cost you 20K or more to sell.
The best thing you could do is to put as much down as you can, on as cheap of a property as you can (condo, townhouse), then send in additional principal payments so that you could pay it off in 6 - 10 years. Then you can either put away extra savings after that, or move into a slightly more expensive place (about 60K more than your current house), and start the 6 year cycle over again.