52520Andrew
Pro Bowler
It's crazy how life works sometimes. In four years' time you'll be thinking the same thing once you get yourself set up.
People instinctively don't like debt but when you take out a loan the loan values stay flat while other numbers tend to inflate (you get a raise, prices go up etc). So just stick to a payment you know you can afford and you can play around with some mortgage calculators online to see what kind of term structure you'd like or what your price range might be. If you want to pay $1000 a month it might well turn out you can get something you're happy with on a 25-year term.
And as @Willbacker said, any bonus dollar you can pay off early into your term helps a lot. I remember doing a calculation a few years ago and found that every every extra dollar you knock off the principal saves you about $6 over the life of a 30-year mortgage (compound interest is one of those things the human mind hasn't done a great job of evolving to deal with - probably because maths geeks don't get laid much amirite).
That compound interest figure depends on the rate itself but yeah. People don't realize the power of compound interest. The ability to accumulate wealth or debt can be really nice or really bad.