Not so easy!

I thought my peers who were buying houses in 2009-2010 were "buying at the bottom." And I was a bit envious, honestly. Turns out, prices dropped for 2-3 more years after that and the bottom was Q1-2012. Some of my 2009 friends ended up selling their houses for less than they bought them for.

Of course, this illustrates perfectly why your house isn't an investment - your life circumstances determine when you buy and when you sell, not the market.

This is really hard to do btw .. all you are saving for is the down payment. I think housing in Toronto is overvalued big time and have not invested. That thesis seems to be materializing but it will likely take some years to play out. The issue is that the high end of the market has fallen more than the low end - the low end has even got up. So saving cash was a bit pointless. Unless I save enough to buy the whole house in case (impossible), I will end up having to get financing at a higher interest rate. I did the math and it is frankly worse to buy a low end house in Toronto today than it was when the bubble was in full swing (mainly because interest rates are higher now).

Lesson learned ... next time, get in on the start of the bubble.