And AFAIK, generally rents are lagging behind house prices and are more sticky. If you're a prospective buyer and houses are loosing and are projected to loose hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, that's pretty big incentive to stick around in your rental and wait.
And "forever" often turns into couple of years because of health problems, job opportunities, personal events, and so and so.
The only reason why houses cost as much as they do is historically low mortgage rates https://www.macrotrends.net/2604/30-year-fixed-mortgage-rate... . And if this (mean reverting) trend is to revert any time soon...
I don't know what actually is going to happen. And maybe FED will eventually decide to hyperinflate the crashing credit bubble which would be great for people with big mortgages. But people that live in oblivion thinking that's the safest investment ever, are completely clueless. But maybe they'll be lucky. :)
Meanwhile here I am in my little city with barely more than 100k people spending less than 1/3 of my income per month with the help of a stable government job. I could get more if I wanted simply by working at the largest employer in town. So why move?
From:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3203-Benton-St-Santa-Clar...
Neighborhood home value
95051 home values have fallen 8.3 % over the past 12 months. One-year prediction
Zillow predicts the home values in 95051 will fall 9% in the next year.
http://www.stock-market-crash.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06...