If you like to bluff, rationalize and stay with losing hands, you won't be in the game very long.  

AllCash highlights a very valid math rationalization.

But it always seemed intuitive to me that in a recession, people would get squeezed out of the A Class apartments into more affordable units, as well as people getting squeezed out of owning into renting.I asked John more about this during a break and if he had any data on not just vacancy, but NOI, because I wonder if A class just hides their losses with concessions instead of lowering rent.Anyway, what you say @John Warren and @Christopher Lombardi seems totally rational and what I would expect.  

Buy gold, bullets and MRE rations, and bury them in the backyard....it's call the Alex Jones Fund!!!!

It sounds like this is what he was told and he's just reiterating it.He just doesn't realize that the information he's been given (and paid for) is wrong...Where does the rational mind go at these events?  

I feel like we were pretty much in the same boat - I would be able to house hack, commute was shorter, I had been looking for months and there was nothing that was "as good of a deal", and I was anxious to get my first property despite my gut feeling that it wasn't a good deal (I was doing everything to rationalize the deal rather than listening to wise advice and trusting the numbers).

You all will be glad to know that while more items have hit the fan since my initial post I have done well in giving an urgent yet rational response. 

So basically upgrade my $1m house to live in a $2m house for $0 extra It's really hard to make a rational argument to be a home owner vs. renter in SD. 

People are weird and not always rational, you never know.

Your process is very rational and mitigates a lot of the initial risk.