So naturally I am attuned to comments like this, and articles elsewhere, which talk about this subject.
Do you have any further insight into why you think there will be a recession in the next 2-3 years? Other than "it's a cycle and we're lined up for another one" ... Are there other market conditions that are making that more and more of a reality?
This was recently posted on HN and gives a good overview of indicators to look at though it's pretty blatantly alarmist.
Makes me definitely consider putting this housing search on the back burner. In my area we've seen massive price increases in just the last 3 years. I was on a tour of a home yesterday and the agent told me that the previous home tour was with a bay area investor who had cash on hand for the home.
Hard to compete with that. And maybe it's just the wrong time to be competing at all.
Buy gold?
If you need a general introduction, Dalio provides a nice starter for thinking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0
A interesting proposed measure here based upon fundamentals IMHO to me is consumption investment ratio: http://necsi.edu/research/economics/econuniversal
All I can really say is be very sceptical of anyone who says they know for sure - I'm going mostly off my reading of cycle behaviors with some hand wavy harder measures (but economics is a terrible field and even the rigorously defined measures in the end have poor real-world predictive accuracy.)
I can't speak to its accuracy, but it's certainly a sobering read.