>it's tough to imagine buying and then being on the hook for a mortgage without a job even with some savings

Key thing to remember here is that you always have to live somewhere, even if you're laid off. Unless you're ready to head out to BFE to save a few hundred bucks on rent, it doesn't get much better than owning in that situation. Plus you could potentially have equity to tap, get a hardship forbearance, or worst case scenario foreclosures take much longer than evictions. This was the lesson COVID era taught me; if you're losing your home it's considered a tragedy, and there are tons of resources to help you. But if you're being evicted from an apartment it's considered a personal moral failure, and you're treated like a criminal.