Something good to remember is that rent is the most you’ll pay, and the mortgage is the least you’ll pay monthly.

It may feel like throwing money away, but you get a some great benefits like continuing to save money/pay off debts since you’ll pay less monthly, and won’t have the unexpected expenses of owning a house. I’d say even more importantly, you get flexibility! You can get out of your current living situation asap, and have more time to find the right housing fit for you/your family.

I live in Northern NJ. My brother in semi-rural Michigan bought a house a while back and my wife was like, “Why didn’t he just rent a nice place. Seems more suitable for his lifestyle.”
I had to explain that in much of the middle of the country you simply cannot “rent a nice place”. Almost everyone owns their homes, even in trailer parks. And rentals are almost all low-quality homes for low-income folks to rent out of necessity.
Based on your initial post I’d say to go for it with the higher-priced place. It’s at the tippy-top of your budget but as a new build there’s a good chance it won’t need major maintenance (roof, AC, etc) for a while. Though I wouldn’t count on “just refinancing when rates go down”. There’s no telling if and when that will happen.

A good rule of thumb also is 1% annually for maintenance around the house. In the rental scenario you'll pay at most $1700/mo

If you won, your MINIMUM payment is $2100/mo. And then you have maintenance. Need a new roof? 10-30k depending on pitch and size. Need to replace your HVAC? Got a plumbing issue? need sewer line replaced etc?

We bought our house and we have some large costs coming up, replace roof in next 5yrs (estimating $30k very steep pitch), our sewer line needs replacement (quoted $20-25k). We bought in summer, moved in Sept, HVAC broke before winter and had to replace immediately ($5k). Came back from vacation once, found someone had driven into our brick garage (luckily fix was only $2k)