Max tax-advantaged retirement savings is usually $18k/person/year in 401k and $5500/person/year in IRA. This means you and your wife would be socking away $47k/year total if you were maxing out your tax-advantaged retirement accounts. If you aren't doing this then I wouldn't consider real estate as an investment. You can get exposure through REITs if you're looking to diversify. This is important because the tax savings alone will probably beat any returns you'll make in real estate; especially in a saturated market.

If you are maxing these out and you're looking to find something to do with the money outside of that (and assuming you have six month's min expenses emergency savings separate from your down payment), I'd keep saving and then do a MF home and rent out units you don't live in. If you buy a property you don't live in, you aren't going to get a mortgage without doing 25 percent down since the bank is going to say it is an investment. Given you have ~$60k, it sounds like you've got a while to go. Alternatively, you could get a MF home. If you're in a place where a studio is $300k, then I'd assume you could potentially find a two/three unit in the $1.5million area. You'd only have to do 10% down if you were an owner-occupant and you could avoid PMI that way, but you'll need to have about double your current amount to hit that as well as a cash reserve of ~six months payments to cover maintenance emergencies. Then you could rent the thing out or do airbnb a lot easier since you'd be right next to it. You also wouldn't have to worry about a pesky HOA telling you what to do.

I'd only even consider this option though if you are absolutely in love with your city and just want to be homeowners in your area. If you don't think you'll be in the city forever and plan on retiring/moving out or something so you can have kids, you're probably going to be better off renting, saving, and then get a job in an area with a lower cost of living.