We sold our house 6 weeks ago or so ago (significant cash out) and moved across the country, and we decided to rent for a bit and gamble that the market would collapse more. But we hate renting and we are already capitulating and putting an offer on a house we found and love. Even with our cash the mortgage will be about the same as before, due to the interest rates. So now we will be gambling that the interest rates will not continue up for long, and that they will decrease below their current level within a couple years. It feels wrong from an investment perspective, but it feels right from a life decision perspective, and it feels right from a security perspective (owning a place we can secure, and where we can grow a garden, etc.), and in the event of a currency crisis it would be bad to be super long cash. Side note: we don't have kids or pets, so it's just my wife and me; and we both have family nearby.
What would you do? And why?
I'm not modeling my plans after Blackrock. I'm stating that, if Blackrock is buying tens of thousands of houses at the "top" of the market, then I am a fool to assume they are just idiots making an obvious strategic mistake, and that we can cleverly wait for a huge discount that they were too stupid to wait for.
What I'm afraid of is that we are already at the "blood in the streets" part of this short downturn and the Fed is going to pivot and, by attempting to time the market, we are going to turn our personal home purchase into a failed, years-long waiting game, all the while blowing our money on rent instead of interest.
Everybody is expecting the real estate market to do what it did in 2008 to 2011. Maybe it will. But look at house prices in the 70s and 80s when the interest rates skyrocketed. The housing market went sideways for over a decade. We are not gonna wait for a decade.