I actually go with buy a house when you need a house and don't plan to move around all that much, and not to worry about "the market" as much. Yeah, you know what you might buy when it's high and it might lose some value. You can still live in the house though, it's not like if it loses some value you have to move out.

What I'd rather settle on is making sure you actually know the costs and buy what you can afford or a little cheaper. Like the idiot in this article could have bothered to do some math. Figured could find a home with a mortgage payment comparable to $3,000 rent, so buy a $585,000 house?! I mean it's simple math that if she put 20% down (doubtful) at 6.99% the mortgage alone is over $3,100. Add at least a few hundred a month onto that for insurance, property tax, etc. So this dumbass bought too expensive of a house. She probably shouldn't have spent much more than $400k. Can't find one for that? Be glad you're landlord is taking the loss (they aren't) and keep renting cheap. Or, buy a house you can afford.

The mortgage guy I talked to said get in when you can, and while he obviously has his own interests in mind it makes sense. After the fight I had with my landlord over the summer I can't imagine not working towards owning property. Besides, it makes sense to build equity with your monthly payments instead of paying off some other guy's mortgage.