It's not a good time to buy homes, but when housing prices crater, I can't tell you honestly that anyone's going to have a good time at that point either.

If you're sitting on a large pile of cash it might be worth it to consider buying a house you know is going to lose 10%-30% value in the next decade in the market crash, and treating it as an investment for such a purpose. Depending on your 'pile', it might be worth not taking out a mortgage, buying the house, and making permanent improvements on it that you know will make the house worth more over time (like adding a 80 year metal roof, installing granite counter tops, reworking the insulation to make it proper).

Alternatively, you can take out a small mortgage on a cheap home that you can do improvements on, and focusing on growing your 'pile' through other investments.

If you can get a 20% downpayment, you can also eliminate mortgage insurance in a lot of mortgages, which can seriously help reduce payments, or even buy down the rate, and doing the above.

It mostly depends on the size of your pile. If it's 100k, all of the above options are available to you. If it's 10k. then a home might not be a great investment without you and your family doing a lot of work.