We are in the early stages of wedding planning along with her starting a new career so we have every excuses as why to not make this happen.

High-end furniture, custom construction, and themed interior decoration.

Knowing your area's school district and proximity to downtown, attractions, theme parks, military bases, airport, are all important depending on your end goal.

@John WilliamsonIf you plan on flipping it would be good to get yourself a style theme.

I suggest you do some basic internet searches as to the causes of the housing affordability crisis, it will include themes such as government policy, capitalism (who is often paying immigrants as cheaper labor), international unrest (which immigrants are often fleeing from), investors inflating prices, people looking for affordable housing not wanting to live where there actually is affordable housing), high interest rates, general inflation and more.

Imagine all the vacations, , the memories, the cooks outs , never missing a soccer game or wedding.

A common theme here is know what you are doing :) I've been in every spot but the number one, I still keep my 3br house even if we could upscale to larger(Let's me invest the extra instead). 

Take stuff one topic at a time and you'll start to see overlapping themes that will help accelerate your understanding.

Adding an index for themes would be of great help (similar to subreddits)... or better tools to search for a discussion on a specific theme/question.

"Leverage" has been brought up a few times, and is looking to be a common theme in people real estate strategy.