home owners, do you regret getting a mortgage “too young”?

Sorry this is a bit long. I bought my first house at the same age as you, and I don't regret it, however I bought in the fairly quiet market of 2018 - paid 13k under asking and had no competition for the house on a circa 2% rate. I was able to be fairly picky about what I bought and where because of the type of market I was buying in e.g the rates being lower, prices being fairly stable, less competition for each property. My friends bought their house about 5 mins from me, also an edwardian 2 bed terrace in the crazy summer of 2022 with a 2 year fixed on those horrible rates, paid 25k over asking (which was already high for the area) and have had to remortgage instead of sell for something bigger (baby on the way) because they're in negative equity based on current prices and the house was already newly renovated so they couldn't really "improve" it. They've expressed regret at effectively buying and over offering out of desperation just to own rather than continuing to rent for a little longer. As always the boom has slowed now and their neighbour just paid quite a lot less for effectively the same property. However if you're going to keep the house for at least 10 years say then chances are you won't lose out. If you're able to afford it buy a place you can "grow in to" rather than fitting the bare minimum of your current needs. It also largely depends on the state of the market when you buy, where you're looking in terms of desirability, local amenities like shops & doctors/dentists/ schools, whether you can improve the property to increase value (nicely done bathrooms and kitchens can make a big difference) and how likely you are to want to move in the next 2-5 years. And if you do want to move will you be happy to rent it out and and rent/ buy another property if you did struggle to sell it? Ideally you don't want to think of it as a short term investment as the financial landscape has been pretty wild especially since covid. It can be tempting to offer higher out of desperation but sometimes its better to wait it out and rent a place instead of jumping the gun on such a huge purchase. Although this can apply to a lot of investments tbh....