I am no expert here; therefore this is just my opinion. There is a saying that “He that watches the skies will never plant”. There is no perfect time to buy that home; if you have the mean to buy, go ahead. A house is an asset; you can sell it later on if you want something better down the line. Again remember that I am not a professional.
I'm happy when I see persons looking for a home to buy, as a professional in the Real Estate Industry, it brings me joy to see people become engaged in the exciting Real Estate Industry,albeit, a very short time. For myself, buying a home is on the most important list of things to do in life, of course, you cannot do this if you do not have money, so..what I plan to do is, initial a plan, and when I am ready to do buy a house, I put that plan fully in effect.
Timing when to buy a house depends more on your personal circumstances more than anything. That said, the fixed rates are phenomenal for buyers right now. Its hard to imagine them getting much lower.
I have no plans of buying a home anytime soon, well this days the economy is unpredictable, so I do believe that the price of homes will keep going up, I do not why I believe in that, but you can wait out and see, the prices might come down.
Don't leave for tomorrow what you can do today, if you can buy a house today and you need it, do it, tomorrow you just might be unable to do it.
I think that it varies on your area as to how the home prices have been. I mean around where I live home owners market has been slow but I do not see much activity going on.
The cost of buying property always goes up . . . a recession might make the value plummet but generally everything tends to be more expensive with time. You decided to buy a house when you found the right one but don't take too long, in some places the value of property rises by 10% annually. Inflation is the cause of that in most cases so the earlier you buy your house, the more you'll save.
It also depends on the law of the country, but I agree, the sooner the better, we can never exclude the possibility that we run out of money later.