I would pretty much disagree with everything here.

Paying off a 3% mortgage means you could not invest that money, which would return 7% on average or like 10+% recently. That is a lot of lost money.

Anyone whos not L5 at bigtech cannot afford any home on a cash basis. That’s not a realistic bar.

That being said, insurance is wildly different by state and location and it sounds like it royally sucks in Texas.