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Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

bud, i've been waiting for the market to shit the bed for a decade.

Even if we have a downturn, rents tend to continue to rise and housing prices don’t tend to drop more than 8% avg. obviously local markets can vary.

My point is, these things can last 40 years. Human adulthood isn’t that long, you might not want to wait.

Having said that, we seem to be in a constant state of unpredictable events that may or may not have financial impact on our family. I’m continually feeling uneasy about paying for a house that was 3/4 less 6 months ago, but it’s been going that way for years.

We are renting, have been for a decade, but had we bought our net worth would probably be less. Housing in our area didn’t rise as much as stock did over the past few years.

If the house is important to you buy it, but financially there are other ways to become an owner of something valuable.

Leverage in housing means price changes are magnified as a when compared to your downpayment size.

If you put 20% down and the house goes up by 20%, your downpayment investment was doubled. Of course, if it went down by 20%, your downpayment was wiped out.

Considering we’ve had housing cycles since records have been kept and the last major price correction was 14 years ago I doubt “this will last 40 years”.

Those two statements don't conflict in any way. A more important question would be, when was the last major correction before the one 14 years ago?

(Did some quick searches and all I'm finding is rates over the past 5-10 years, rates over the past century grouped by decade that don't even register 2008, and articles talking about 2008)

2001, before that, 1990.

Dude, with construction far below what was needed since 2008 and now with the supply chain troubles this won't happen. Concrete gold mustn't lose its value, Blackstone won't permit it.

I met a couple early on in the pandemic who were waiting for the housing market to cool down before trying to buy a place. Prices have appreciated over 20% since they. From talking to my parents' generation, it seems like real estate seemed super expensive back then as well. I've come to the conclusion that real estate is always in such high demand that it always seems super expensive.

some un-solicited advise I got on house market (I have recently purchased after searching for 24+mths )

no one sells their house for less than they bought in unless they HAVE to. They just don't sell.

So for me, as a buyer potentially waiting for the market to correct, its not worth waiting, your life will have passed by in the meantime.

If they lose their job in San Francisco bay they just take a new job in San Francisco bay. This is, IMO, why housing essentially never goes down in the bay (until either Prop 13 is repealed or the big earthquake hits and a lot of people are scared out of town).

But there are plenty of areas in America where if you lose you're job you're moving, regardless of whether you particularly want to. No one wants to sell stocks at a loss either, and yet people do.

So my bet is that if there's a recession home prices will go down. Time will tell.

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