^ to expand on the example of Canada
As mentioned, our country introduced "cooling measures" to try and calm down the insanely heated housing market.
It seemed very reasonable for people to assume that this would lower housing prices, as that's what it was intended to do. So a lot of very savvy people chose to wait before jumping into the over heated housing market.
My closest friend is a brilliant government economist and he was certain that house prices were set for a tumble. He was a renter and trying to time his entry perfectly.
Except...here's what actually happened.
The cooling measures started to work pretty much exactly as expected. A lot more people thought twice about upgrading to very expensive homes, and those sky high prices stopped rising so quickly since there were a lot less buyers at the top range.
Cool. The price escalation started calming down.
What this meant for first time home buyers though was that there was a huge drop in people leaving their entry level homes, so a drop in inventory, and an insane rise in demand for lower price properties. The price to enter the market actually shot up and this summer was one of the hottest sellers markets on record.
I just sold my townhouse for 30% above what it was worth last year. There was a rapid and heated bidding war and multiple offers without conditions. It was nuts, even the agents got emotional.
This was the exact time period that my economist friend thought he should wait for because he was certain he could time a first time buy with a huge price drop.
A LOT has to happen for home prices to drop substantially in a short period of time.
It's not only extremely difficult to predict, but you should also consider that if something happens that's big enough to topple prices, that you may not actually want to buy at that time, or may not want to buy in your area if it's just your local economy taking a severe beating. Sometimes a major drop isn't an opportunity, but instead a warning to GTFO.
The future is hard to predict, it's also hard to predict what your future self will want under different circumstances, especially if those circumstances are extreme.
That why, if present self is certain that you want to own, if the math makes sense to own instead of rent, and you can easily afford your housing costs in your area on your salary, then there's no rational reason not to buy.
There's ALWAYS a rational reason to keep renting, but if you stick to those reasons, then you will rent forever. There's nothing wrong with that, I always wanted to be a lifelong renter, but it's just so much cheaper for me to own the exact kind of place I would rent.
The math makes sense for me, I didn't really think beyond that or about what it might do. I actually just view my place as rent-controlled, not as an investment. Whether house prices rise or fall, I don't expect rents to drop, so the ratio will always work out in my favour.
The real estate market will be what it will be, and you might get lucky and make money off of it, or you might not.
Don't waste your energy trying to predict the future.