I am currently a full time student, and I do work a commission job that pays me well, but my living situation has changed dramatically because my Dad has moved to Temecula (far from where i work and go to school) and I cant live with my mom.

This is important because even though they do not and cannot control the long-term bonds what the FED Funds rate does affect dramatically is interest rates on things like CC and HELOCs.

Can we use some perspective and do away with the hyperbole.20-25% drop in prices would be a range that is slightly worse than the housing collapse 15 years ago to dramatically worse....as that drop was 19% from peak quarter to bottom quarter.

We are at less than half of the level a year ago, a dramatic decrease.Sales StatisticsYear-to-year prices increased by about 4%.

If you expect to land in the 35% or 39% brackets when its time to pull from a 401k - then I think you are right on to go for the Roth, those are the rates I could see going up dramatically.  

Well, that is certainly the play, of course if your dollar dips dramatically and interest rates climb aggressively, you both lose your buying power and those to sell to.

With the way rents are rising dramatically in Sacramento,  there is a lot of pricing pressure on the low end of the market.  

Lots of union contractors, which increases labor prices dramatically, as well as the fact that there are very few investors, so contractors aren't accustomed to "investor pricing."  

What I meant was that normally market conditions don't change dramatically in 1-2 years unless you're investing into a huge speculative bubble.

From a cash flow perspective, a shorter note often doesn't have that big an effect on the month to month scale.. but after (say) 5 years, the amount you're leveraged has dropped dramatically with the 15, vs barely moved with a 30.