Hey Matt,What a great deal to already have the land in the rapidly growing Dallas area.

I am happy to minimize interest expenses and build our nest egg via rapid principal pay down. 

There was a story about this a few years ago in Cedar Rapids, IA.

I am trying to build cash as rapidly as I can, a war chest.Then the de-leverage part is, I don't want to be over extended on credit.

Anyone that lives in Austin can tell you that incomes are increasing rapidly.

This has been a rapidly appreciating market with some months nearing 20% appreciation so sure 4% month over month reduction in price looks stark in comparison but were still up 6.6% from last year which is 2-3x the national average, our inventory is down to just over 3 months of inventory now and our days on market rose slightly which indicates market stabilization. my crystal ball is in the shop but I'd put money, and am because I'm still personally buying, on the market stabilizing in the next two months. we also have contributing factors such as Meta moving outside of Boise which will draw attention and Micron adding 15,000 jobs and 15 billion of infostructure to Boise.

Yes housing prices increased rapidly and when interest rates stopped being manipulated to be artificially low this had a negative effect on the housing market. 

Good properties are receiving multiple offers and go under contract very rapidly.

For bargains, I think Cedar Rapids would be a great place to look (don't buy in the floodplain) and there is a lot of activity and reasonable properties in the Davenport/Bettendorf, however the neighborhood are really hit and miss.

I vote for the 401(k) and increasing my total assets under my name as much and as rapidly as possible.