If you can do better than prevailing rates you would put your money elsewhere, like the stock market as an example. 

Maybe after the stock market crashes, we'll find more deals. :-)

So leads me to two questions:1: if it's a bad time to buy a primary residence; why would it be a good time to invest in REI - aside from possibly following a DVA approach to REI like I would stocks for example.2: waiting feels like I'm going to 'guess the market' - I'm not certain that housing prices will fall all that much, perhaps they just flatten out to match inflation (as I've read for my market due to strength) and I'm fairly confident that rates will creep up.I would not purchase a home that has a monthly greater than 25% of our net (and this is after maxing 401s).

I self-manage so I don't always put too much stock in the seller's numbers since I know the market and how the asset will perform under me.

I buy blue chip stocks like Coke and GE plus I invest in ETF's which include only bluechip.

Maybe I will get lucky and earn 4% a year in the stock market....

Find a great team of cleaners, and people who are willing to assist you with the home - try to see if your cleaners can take on the responsibility of stocking the home and pay them a little extra for their time at Costco.

This older stock is often used as rental property and occupied by people with the lowest incomes.

I didn't used to put much stock in Zillow estimates, but they were pretty accurate when tracking sales in my area and what my house appraised for when I refinanced.

We started investing in stocks and bonds and now we are branching out into real estate.