I'm trying to buy my first house, in the cheaper suburbs about 30 miles outside off seattle. I've been trying to buy for 8 years but prices were always one step ahead of me. This is the first time I've been able to find a house that meets my criteria I'm looking for, within my comfortable budget ($220K). However heres the thing, I'm a stable guy who hates moving. I want to live in the house for 15 years to life, so I'm not concerned about equity, just concerned about getting a good house.


Right now, although I have seen a couple houses that meet my criteria in that price range, they are few and far between, and are major fixer uppers. I feel like if prices fell 20-50K, I'd have many more options, and that I could actually find a real nice house within my price/criteria to live in for a long time, rather that one that will "be good enough, but less than ideal.


Now my realtor says that prices are going to go up in 2009. Worrying me that if I don't buy a less than ideal fixer upper real soon, that I might not be able to find one again within my comfortable budget.


I've really been paying attention to the economy lately, and been studying all sorts of different financial sources recenly, and all the hard data indicates the opposite. More and more major layoffs, including boeing and other major corporations, auto industry possibly failing, forclosures still on the rise with record numbers expected between now and 2010, and house prices still on the decline according to case schiler, ofheo, s&p, and every other source I could find.

It seems like historically house prices roughly followed the inflation rate, until the housing bubble which shot them sky high. Then it burst and and they have only just started the decline around 2006-2007, and still have a very long ways to get back down closer to the inflation rate they have typically followed. And if real estate normally works in 7 year cycles, it seems like we might have 5 more years of decline to go.
Now I know Obama will try hard to fix things, but even he admits it will take time (if it works at all).


I told this to my realtor, and asked him how he gets his predictions that house prices will go up in 2009, when all the data I can find shows the opposite. He just told me that I'm looking at broad data of all the us, and that the washington state economy is on of the strongest and will be the soonest to bounce back. He says its already showing signs of coming back.


So is this a bunch of bs and I will most likely be safe waiting for prices to drop a little more, to find a more ideal house. Or is he likely telling the truth?


PS: Remember, I'm not really looking for an investment house, but rather a long term house to live in that hopefully is nice, rather than run down. Even though I could settle on a run down house if it was all I could afford. I'd be kicking myself if I bought a run down house, and then a year later saw the market flooded with more plentiful choices of nicer homes for the same price.