[Porsche-O-Phile]

On a long enough timeline, everything will go up, at least in terms of "absolute", raw number dollars.

"Real" dollars is another story entirely. Given how hopelessly out of whack RE prices were with the inflationary curve from about 1999-2008, it's unlikely that anyone who bought during that time will ever make back what they put in - at least in terms of real dollars (factoring in the effect of inflation). When you look at historical price data, RE prices have virtually mirrored inflation for the last 120+ years. That is until this last bubble when the two curves became uncoupled and RE prices were on the order of 2-5X their typical value based on where the inflation curve indicated they should be. Simply put, people paid 2-5X what they should have in terms of real dollars. In the next couple of years as inflation replaces deflation and starts to really take hold (it will) and RE prices continue to slide, the net effect will be that the curves will fall back into proper relationship with one another and there will never (unless there's another bubble like the one we just had) be another opportunity for people to sell and make back enough real dollar profit to make the transaction worth it.

Sorry, but I'm not buying into any of this happy talk about real estate. The problems that this last bubble created are just barely beginning to be understood by the public-at-large. The real effects will last decades and will not be washed away by a lot of positive talk about what a wonderful investment RE is. Bull. RE will be a lousy investment for the foreseeable future. Maybe in another 10 years it'll make sense again (kinda') but I doubt before then.

This is an "L" bottom, not a "V" or "U" bottom. There's no reason to buy now. None. Other than possibly getting a decent rate (and I suspect we've still got several more months of low rates before the Fed has to start jacking rates to combat explosive inflationary pressure, which is lurking just over the horizon).