You seem to be looking at buying a house as an investment. I'd argue otherwise: your first piece of real estate is a necessity, not an investment - you always need a place to live. So, in financial terms, you're closing a short position, not opening a long position.

Of course there is non-negligible friction if you need to move, so you do want to be mindful of not buying right at the peak, but in general I think you're overstating how much you need to worry about prices: you don't profit when prices go up, since you'd also have to pay more for a new place, and as long as you can afford the payments, your home moves in line with the market and don't need to sell, you also don't need to let falling prices affect your sleep. Your position is market neutral, you are mostly giving up flexibility.