Sure, you're paying more than you would have if you waited, but you were happy to pay XXXXUSD per month to have somewhere to live, and your relative mobility has actually increased if we assume that the housing market fell by a flat percentage.
After the 2008 crash, I was planning on moving, but abruptly changed my plans when I lost close to a 80K on the value of my home.
Fast forward 6 years and suddenly the market was showing signs of rebounding. I had always been in contact with my real estate agent, but I was considering a large scale remodel and staying put where I was. My agent offered to start looking for something that I might like.
A year later the process went shockingly fast. I was assuming the house would sit for a while since the market was still pretty soft. I cleaned and de-cluttered my house and it went on the market. Within hours I had two listings for the next day - which ballooned to four the morning of. When I got back, I had two offers. The house was on the market less than two days.
I credit the ability to sell my house and make a few grand on it to my agent. It was priced and marketed really well by him and his company. This is the second house he's sold for me. The other house was on the market at the height of the housing boom and sold in less than a week.
And I don't believe those actually exist any more.
Also, I no longer trust the justice system to protect my rights as a property owner. Having been primed by software-based DRM to not want to buy something unless I can truly own it, I find that land property in the US is often heavily encumbered with covenants, regulations, local ordinances, mortgage terms, and recurring taxes, to the point where it feels like paying rent and signing a lease feels less restrictive.
I don't get this. If you rent instead, you'll just be sinking monthly payments into that (maybe more, maybe less than with buying).
And there's no need for a job that lasts 30 years, you just need to keep the ability to make the payment every month. But that is also true when renting.
Anecdotally, I have realized more value per dollar spent on rented homes than on purchased homes. If I had never purchased a home in the past, renting instead, I believe without a shred of doubt that I would have a greater net worth today.
I cannot make a rational case for home purchase now, because I cannot guarantee so many years of steady paychecks within an acceptable commuting radius of any home I could buy. Look back 30 years before now, to 1985. How many jobs existed then in the U.S. that no longer exist now? Do you think you can predict what the job market will look like in 2045?
If your job was to make buggy whips, would you feel safe making a 30-year financial commitment in 1890? Perhaps, but the Ford Model T came in 1908. Technology develops faster now. I get the impression that jobs that don't even exist this year may become obsolete before 30 years elapse, and yet employers still routinely hire based on specific experience rather than aptitude or trainability.
Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that I will never take on debt to buy a home again, and I don't expect to ever be able to afford to buy anything without doing so.
The problem comes when the town's economy crashed (because the buggy whip factory was the big business), or the nation's economy crashes (recession/depression/downturn/whatever), and I have to sell my house. Then I can really get burned.
And the next problem: When I buy a house, I can't be sure what the economic environment will be when I need to sell it.
I would say that, over the long haul, if you live in a town where there's enough variety of employment that you can probably continue to find work even if you lose your current job, most of the time owning your own house is a net win. (Be sure to hear all the caveats in that sentence!)
I do know for certain that I will never sign another mortgage for as long as I live. Those lenders can go FOADIAF.
https://thezikomoletter.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/you-are-nat...
To be honest that wasn't _all_ our savings, and they were already spent on the house of course, but it was a financial loss equal to most of our original savings.