Advice from those over 100k miles

vtec to vvel

Given that just in the US alone, we are about 15 years behind in terms of underbuilding, yes, home prices are expected to continue to rise. There's simply not enough home supply to support the demand. COVID really helped home values to go up when the Feds slashed rates.

After the late 2000 housing crash, a lot of new home builders went out of business, and for the builders that were fortunate enough to stick around, they built cautiously and rightfully so. Around the housing crash came the Great Recession so people were scared to buy and banks were scared to lend, so home builders severely underbuilt new homes to ensure their financial stability (why build when it costs money to produce and no one is really buying and with the housing market crash, no one was really looking to buy).

Within these 15 years, households have grown significantly, but no where near the amount of homes available to support this growth. Simple supply/demand, you now have more buyers (even with raised rates) than actual homes available for sale. You have more competition now in terms of home buyers than before, esp. with COVID:

1. Existing home owners who want to upgrade (first-time home buyers cannot compete with this group simply because of the lack of equity)
2. Millenials and Generation Z have reached the age of first-time home buyers.
3. COVID: many companies offered remote work and many have flocked to FL (for political asylum, no state income tax, weather, etc.).

So yes, home values will continue to rise, maybe not as fast as during COVID, but unless the housing market crises somehow fixes itself fast with more supply, values will not decrease. You said it yourself that you went from $140K to $511K - this is a HUGE increase.

With your logic of not buying high, if you wait until rates go back down, you will be going through exactly what we just went through: HIGH competition, much more inflated home values, bidding wars, much more out of pocket costs to entice the sellers to accept your offer, etc.

If you buy high, the rates can always be refinanced when they drop, and you won't go through the bidding war nonsense. Renting rates are just as high, if not higher than mortgages, so which makes more sense:

1. Rent high with no equity building and pay 100% interest

OR

2. Buy high and build equity with the option to refinance rates when they drop

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