I've been house hunting for about 3 months and I've made 5 offers at asking price that have been beaten by people with cash paying over asking. No one with cash to buy the kinds of places I'm looking at is going to live in them, these are 'investors' though I'd prefer to call them rent vultures.
Three of the places have already come up on the rental market and I'm certain the others will soon.
We need to prioritize home ownership over the 'passive income' class.
I hear ya.
I was still saving to buy a house in 2019 when circumstances beyond my control forced me to accelerate that timeline significantly. My offer was accepted in October and closed and moved-in mid December of that same year. Got a decent interest rate and then refinanced less than a year later during COVID when rates went down even lower.
2019 was a rough year, but had the unfortunate circumstances not happened and I waited until 2021-2022 to house hunt (which was my original timeline), I'd be in the same boat. I consider myself very lucky even though 2019 was pretty awful otherwise.
the median price for a house in my area is $900k. median. if I wanted to buy a house that wasnt in a crime ridden hell hole, I'd have to move somewhere that has no jobs.
my project at this point in time is building an RV and living it in until I can afford to buy land and run water/sewer/electricity to it. the upside is that a house on wheels can drive where it's warm.