My household brings in $6,900 a month  (83k a year) we are buying a house at 395k 6.625 interest rate.

Despite current unemployment rates maintaining below 5%, the recent rise from 3.8% to 4.2%(recently revised to 4.1%) is significant, especially when considering wage growth adjusted for inflation.Over the last few years, the median household income has dropped by 7.2% when adjusted for inflation (and this isn't even considering volatile food and energy prices), a troubling trend given that inflation has outstripped income growth.

Here in CA over 40% of households are renters.

Every day I go buy things for my household I decide whether the price I pay for an item is worth it or not.

IMO, it is the lack of education (not schooling, but how to clean, teach your kids to respect their living space, etc) that causes the issues, and you have that whether it's a single adult household paying with a voucher, or a two adult household, who both have low pay jobs. 

It is called household formation.

So when I showed her my plan, she pushed back since this was outside of our normal household practices.

Huntsville ranked the best in this metric at only 14.1% of the median household income.However, the low property tax rate of just 0.41% of the median home value—the seventh lowest in the country—may seal the deal.

In addition to some of the great advice above, I would put some serious work into your personal household budget and building up a substantial (6 month) emergency reserve fund.

The tenant segment we've targeted for over 17 years is families with elementary school-age children and a gross household income between $65,000 and $85,000.The only properties this segment will rent are:Type: Single-familyConfiguration: 3+ bedrooms, 2+ baths, 2+ car garages, 1,100 to 2,400 SF, one or two stories, lot size 3,000 SF to 6,000 SF.Rent range: $1,800/Mo to $2,300/MoLocation: See the map below for the areas where our target tenant segment chooses to live.What has been our results following this process?