That's what makes me laugh when I talk to people who are looking to buy a home. Despite the housing crash of 2007, when I ask them what would happen if housing prices go down, they get this disturbed look on their faces and say "nah! not in this city!!".
As someone who has nearly paid-off a mortgage I have absolutely no interest in whether house prices increase or decrease.
I'm buying somewhere to hopefully live for the rest of my life. I have no idea what the current 'value' of my house is, nor will I be enquiring.
If it turns-out that the house eventually achieves negative equity, who cares? I'm still living in it and that would actually mean my property taxes decrease...
People still buy cars despite meteoric[0] devaluation.
This is great, but it's not a realistic scenario for most folks who aren't approaching retirement and can't be 100% sure they're never going to move again. If you ever needed to move, you'd suddenly care quite a bit about the current value of your home because it will have a tremendous impact on the actual cost of buying a new home.
True, but (assuming prices are comparably "up" or "down" in both places and that you're moving into something of similar size or larger) it's better to move when prices are low (since a lot of the costs are pegged to the price of the house).
Then it sounds like buying for the right reasons! Many people see buying a home as not only getting a place to live, but also as an investment. And for some reason many people see the investment as "low risk", which it often isn't.
