[bigbootch]

[ QUOTE ]
i'm not going to pretend to know what i'm talking about on this, but can someone please explain to me why buying a house when prices are down is a bad idea?

in years gone past in CA, when a house went up for sale in a desirable location, it was basically a fire sale with people offering much more then the asking price.

Now, that you can actually in many cases get in at below the asking price...it is the "wrong time"?

make zero sense to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you look at real estate for the past 100 years or so, they have broken even after inflation. Despite what you may hear on MSNBC or whatever, yes it's true, historical data indicate real estate prices don't beat inflation.

That said, there are still plenty of reasons one might want to buy real estate. My point is that it is by no means an automatic "real estate is better than any other investment" decision as most Americans believe.