What are idling first-time home buyers doing?

I think of pricing as a probability distribution, and while it's possible that prices continue to increase, in my view the downside risk on house prices predominates. Here are a few possibilities:

1. high interest leads to an increase in rates, significantly increasing payments and making current prices less affordable.

2. A recession drops wages

3. Stock prices drop precipitously, devaluing a lot of paper money in some markets (e.g., RSUs)

4. Previous 'hot-markets' have their use-value decrease substantially due to greater availability of remote work

5. In concert with a rate increase, if house prices look to be dropping housing as an investment vehicle may become unappealing, causing a flight and a downward spiral

All of this has to be balanced with the risk of holding onto cash or putting the money into other vehicles. Inflation is eating at the cash pretty aggressively right now and many other more liquid investments suffer similar risks as housing, but you don't get to live in your stock portfolio. If inflation doesn't get reigned in, housing may hold its nominal value or even increase and there's probably a sizable contingent of policy makers that would rather inflate than suffer significant nominal housing value decreases. For me, I'm basically watching what happens with inflation and how policy makers look to be acting. I'm holding a decent amount of cash, but I'm looking for a place to put it near-term and have limited patience on housing in the face of continued high inflation.

What other kind of investment apart from housing can one take out >=5x leverage on an investment and have the interest tax-subsidized?

Housing is a big racket in the United States, and everyone is too afraid to say anything becuse they just spent the better part of a million dollars on a condo https://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/3610-1st-Ave-NW-98107/unit...

But if you make $300/yr and don't have kids or too many expenses thats like 5 years to pay off, so not too bad then? Not totally sustainable for the rest of the country and/or poor people though.

I’m just now looking for a house. So far I’ve been throwing extra money into vanguard funds. It seems like waiting for a housing crash doesn’t make sense because stocks will drop too. My buying power would be about the same before and after.

Please correct me if I’m wrong here. I can’t keep up with all the variables.

Saving cash, because the obvious situation is to wait for the crash. It’s going to happen and then I won’t be wasting 2/3rd of my money on the inflated market investment value of what is one of the basic human needs. Real estate as an investment is the sand that a big part of the currently precarious global financial situation sits on. It’s going to collapse in my lifetime and I’d rather be sitting on a pile of cash the moment it happens than be leveraged hip deep in some stock brokerage unable to turn my cash into the one thing my parents and their parents generation got to take for granted, ownership of the land they lived on.

I’m Denver a single family home within 20 minutes of downtown starts at $300k for a very small or rundown house. I’m continuing to rent apartments that are near-luxury for less per month.

My friends who are purchasing homes either move very far from the city or their parents pay for the down payment.

Investing cash in other places and expecting a big crash. Laugh at me if you want.

Sitting and renting because I don’t like where I live enough to buy, and where I like it I can’t afford it.

We're undecided so far. Living in the high cost of housing area is crazy expensive but it would be close to friends and family. Another option is living in another town in another province which would be cheaper but we'd be so far away from everyone.

This question seems to have an implicit assumption that buying a house is a superior investment than other investment vehicles.

I believe it's been shown that investing in equities outperforms housing historically.

I have to sign a 6 month lease today while I wait for my new construction to be built. Locked in the price earlier this month, however.

Waiting until I know where I want to buy a house. I just moved to a new city this year. Not sure how long I'll stay.

Still saving, only have 60k saved, not enough for a down payment, no bank wants to look at us

Hoping the prices drop