The wait continues for future home buyers

It's been about two years since I first thought about buying my first home and subsequently decided to wait ...wait for the market to fall-apart. Well, it finally has (in the U.S. at least - we're still waiting here in Canada). In reading about all the foreclosures and other empty houses sitting on the market, I can't help but think how many other people there are out there like me - waiting for the market to bottom-out to get the best possible deal.

Yes, market timing is difficult, if not impossible, but everyone believes that what they're strategy can outsmart the market and I'm no different. I don't know when the bottom will come, but I'm pretty sure that we're not there yet. The fact that the Fed cut another quarter-point yesterday points to the fact that a lot of people (smarter than me) tend to agree. 

A cut in the interest rate, although there's no doubt that the cut was primarily motivated by the credit crunch, it's also clear that the Fed and all those economists aren't convinced that the current recessionary trends are significant enough to halt (or even hike) the rates. The time will come, however, when those rates will have to rise. Inflation, by all reasonable accounts is nearing double-digit levels ...regardless of what you hear in the news. To bring that sort of inflation under control and help boost the dollar, the rates will have to soar. When they do, so too will mortgage rates and that will most certainly take its toll on the housing market.

...that's when the market will bottom and when a lot of people sitting on their down payments will finally be able to buy their home-sweet-home.