<prompt> Human: I will be graduating college this coming spring of 2019. I will be 21 years old and have a starting salary of 65K. I will have zero debt and will have roughly 25K saved. My question is, do I look at buying a townhome for roughly 180K, 10-15K down, to build equity? Or do I wait for the housing market to fall with the coming recession in 1-3 years? Rent is fairly cheap where I live and could spend maybe 10K first year on rent, waiting for the crash. I am very versed in economics and finance not my degree however. There is a recession coming and I do not want to have a 180K townhome be valued at 130-150 K a few years later? Is this a logical worry? or am I missing something.  <response>: If and when there is a crash, we have no idea how it will look. Your job might cease to exist in the town that you live in, or you could get a pay cut. You will be kicking yourself if you cant just sell your house and move. People could flood your area, and traffic could get worse. If you wait for a crash and want to buy a 100,000 house which TBH seems like its a lot of peoples strategies, you might be priced out a little bit. Or the only houses available might need a LOT of work done roof, HVAC, plumbing, electric, floors and you will wish you had bought earlier.The best strategy is to be boring and buy a solid house when you are ready with 20 down in an area you want to live for 5-7 years or longer if we end up with a repeat of 2008. You are still young have time. You might meet an awesome person who you fall in love with who lives 2 hours away and needs to stay in the town that they live in for work, or will need to move several states away for a promotion eventually. Renting is never throwing your money away. It is a roof over your head that you dont have to pay to fix. You can move one year in and dont have to pay closing costs. 