<prompt> Human: First of all - Im a simple guy. I care more about experiences than money. But one thing I want is a house, but I want to do it on my own terms when I am comfortable financially and have saved up the 20 down payment. I dont want to have to worry about all these housing bubbles etc. As such, I ignored and am continuing to ignore realtors yelling at me to buy a house NOW NOW NOW because I wanted to pay off my other debt first, save up the 20, and raise my income a little so I am not eating ramen noodles to pay my mortgage while paying my car loan debt and student loan debt those are gone now. I feared that I would somehow miss out on the good prices and once I had the twenty percent downpayment, my rent would go up while housing prices skyrocketed. Well here I am, I am approximately 1.5 years away from my 20 downpayment, and the houses that I have been looking at to benchmark went from around 200,000k to 250,000K, or an increase of about 25. Other houses are in similar situations. My worst fears are coming true. Basically, when I have my 20, and am ready to buy, I dont want to enter a bidding war on a house that I could have bought for 200,000K that is now going for 300,000K. Fuck that. I am stressed out now, feel like I am at the mercy of the housing market, and it is going to screw me over, a simple guy that just wants to buy a fricken modestly sized house, and pay a reasonable amount for it, not buy during another bubble. Do I just keep saving and saving until prices go down again and keep renting? I am getting overly stressed about it now.  <response>: I am stressed out now, feel like I am at the mercy of the housing marketYou arewere always at the mercy of the housing market.not buy during another bubble.If you stick to the fundamentals, i.e. buying a house when you are ready or because you are ready, buying during a bubble doesnt really matter. The people that get screwed in housing bubbles are those that arent buying from a position of financial strength low down payments, large mortgages, etc. 