Market cycles and the cost of waiting
Timing the market is difficult; timing your own life is not. Which of the two should decide your purchase?
Senior Agent, Verano Quay
Property cycles are long, and the turning points are only legible afterwards. Buyers who wait for a bottom generally identify it about eighteen months after it happened.
What waiting costs
The cost of waiting is not only the price movement. It is rent paid, transaction costs repeated, and — usually the largest item — the compromise you accept later because your circumstances narrowed while you waited.
A more useful question
Rather than asking whether the market is at a good level, ask how long you expect to hold. Over a hold of eight years or more, the entry point matters considerably less than whether you bought a building that suits how you actually live.
Over a hold of two years, almost nothing else matters as much as the entry point — which is a good reason not to buy on a two-year horizon.