[Michelle]

I apologize if this is an ignorant question. But is there a general knowledge of when house prices should be going down? Is there a kind of real estate cycle that is predictable based on past economic trends?

I thought it would have been down by now.

[Mei Lai On]

What area are you looking to buy?

A lot of the members have giving fantastic answers to your question agreed.

Buy when you can afford.

Don’t time it, impossible.

RE pricing is different by state and city.

Get in and get your asset. Will it be your primary first home?

[Jacob]

I don’t think you’re going to see housing prices go down. It’s a supply issue, more buyers than homes available by a long shot.

[Mei Lai On]

As rates keep going up, those who might consider selling are not because the house they move to would likely have a much higher rate than they have now. This is contributing to less inventory in my opinion.

[Jacob]

Many RE people believe prices will stabilize but there won’t go down.

Overall there is a huge supply issue which many believe won’t be solved for years.

But timing the RE market is like timing the stock market – you can’t. You might get lucky but that’s all it is.

[Clara]

When I was first saving to buy a home, a family member said to buy as soon as the numbers made sense. The numbers made sense after three years of saving a downpayment (in a HCOL area), but we decided to wait for a correction in the market that never happened. After two years of waiting, our downpayment was no longer sufficient for the type of property that we wanted. Ultimately, we moved away from HCOL and bought an awesome house in MCOL. However, we bought at beginning of pandemic (April 2020)…and couldn’t afford our house now if we were trying to buy it, just three years later.

Home is shelter; buy as soon as the numbers make sense if you want to own a home.

[Dane]

Prices will go down when supply out paces demand. Media and real estate people have been saying prices were about to drop for 5-8 years because it’s a topic that sells. And there is no penalty for them being wrong. They can be wrong 100 times and they are just rewarded with clicks and views every time.

[Patrick]

Having worked in the real estate sales and appraisal world for decades, it is impossible to time. We buy or sell when it makes sense for our lives rather than speculating. There may be seasonal cycles that your local experts might be aware of, but I wouldn’t even try to time it based on what I think the market will do.

[Jen]

As everyone else has said, there’s never a real way to time the market and markets very location specific but a super helpful podcast is On the Market by Bigger Pockets if you want to hear the most up to date economic and real estate/mortgage related news from experts.

[Tony]

There’s a 3.8M home deficit in the US, and prices won’t really level out until we reach an equilibrium where everyone who wants and can afford a home has one. It’s going to take about a decade to close the gap.

The other issue is that most people won’t leave a very affordable 3% interest rate property to start up a 6-7% interest rate on a more expensive property; there’s no incentive to move, which is stagnating the market.

In my area, unemployment is around 3% and homes are still going under contact in 4-5 days at over asking, and I don’t imagine that changing any time soon.

[Alan]

I think you have to calculate against the local market and supply against income level – I can easily in ohio walk out and buy a nice house at the 500-800k level because high supply low demand but getting a home below 300k – tons of demand.

[Jennifer]

It likely won’t in most areas.

A lot of would be sellers are opting to either NOT move because they have such a low rate and payment on their home or keep the house and rent it out if they do actually decide to move. Lower supply=stable or increasing prices

[Aaron]

No there is not a predictable way to know when housing prices will go down . There can be economic events that often suggest prices will come down but it’s by no means guaranteed. I’d no sooner try to guess when it would go down than try to guess when the stock market will go down .

[Sandra]

You had a lot of people change houses in the last 3 years. They usually stay 5-7 years then start wanting to move. However with the historically low interest rates, they may not be motived to try to upgrade because of finances. I’m thinking we may see many years before the housing market opens up. With boomers now staying in place more and more for the same reasons, who knows? I’ve been alive long enough to know it will but we can’t predict. I know we stayed out of the market during the great rush to buy because I knew eventually it would turn even when the 20-30 something realtors told me no. Lol.

[Elizabeth]

I don’t expect home prices to come down, though interest rate hikes have slowed the crazy upward spiral in my area. But the huge increases in building costs have really slowed new home building in my area, and as long as it’s too expensive for most people to build, I don’t think we’ll see prices come down bc there’s still a shortage. Honestly other than the housing bubble in ‘08 and subsequent recovery, I don’t ever remember housing prices going down. Building equity is one of the biggest pros of home ownership, you don’t really want to buy in a depreciating market, and many people won’t sell when it’s down unless they absolutely have to.

[Author]

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