Confessions of a Former Housing Doomsdayer and Why I Was Wrong

If you know my work, you know I constantly tell people to ignore the housing doomsdayers who claim a massive market crash is just around the corner. But today, I have a true confession to make: once upon a time, I was one of those very doomsdayers. Having spent nineteen years as a mortgage lender, leading one of the top purchase teams in America, I have learned the hard way that waiting for the market to dip is a losing strategy. I want to share exactly what I was thinking during my skeptical years, how I realized I was wrong, and why I am so passionate about helping you avoid making the same costly mistakes I did.

Coming of Age in the 2008 Crash

My perspective was forged in the fire of the worst housing crisis in modern history. I entered the mortgage market at the very end of 2007, just as the industry began to explode. It was a horrible and depressing time to start a career. I began at Washington Mutual, which famously shut down, and then moved to Countrywide, which was subsequently acquired by Bank of America. Every single day as a new loan officer, I answered calls from desperate homeowners telling me how they had lost their properties. That emotional wreckage is the reason I am so committed to borrower education today. I never want to see that kind of devastation happen to families again.

Why I Expected Another Housing Collapse

From 2011 through 2015, the bulk of my business was in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California. During the height of the foreclosure crisis from 2008 to 2010, banks were flooding the market with inventory because they had no idea how to handle the sudden failure of complex adjustable-rate mortgages. But by 2011, banks began holding back inventory, releasing only a tiny fraction of their foreclosures to avoid further depressing prices. While the industry waited for the next big wave of foreclosures to hit, it never came. If a bank had three thousand foreclosures on its books, they might only release ten of them to the public.

By 2012, I wanted to buy another property, but I held off because home prices were starting to rise again. Looking at the financial profiles of applicants on the front lines, I was convinced the market was unsustainable. I was seeing two-income households with fifty-percent debt-to-income ratios. Logically, it seemed impossible for prices to keep climbing when local workers could not afford them on average salaries. I assumed that if the average job paid eighty thousand dollars but a home required a hundred thousand dollars in income, prices would have to plummet. It seemed like simple, undeniable math.

The High Price of Waiting

I finally stopped waiting and bought a home in 2016. Since then, the value of that home has doubled. Even without the extensive remodel I performed, the market growth was staggering. Recently, a neighbor sold their home in original, un-remodeled condition for twice what I paid for my property in 2016. Had I continued to wait for a crash that never arrived, I would have been completely priced out of the neighborhood. This was a painful lesson in how waiting for a crash can backfire and cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost equity.

Unforeseen Forces That Drive Prices Higher

What I failed to realize in 2012 was that markets are shaped by unpredictable economic shifts and lifestyle changes. We began to see parent co-signers, multi-generational living arrangements, and the rapid rise of short-term rental platforms like Airbnb. None of these trends were obvious over a decade ago. Years later, the pandemic introduced permanent remote work, allowing millions of Americans to relocate. Even my own father, who moved to New Mexico, saw his home value jump sixty percent due to these shifting dynamics. Once you realize how many wild cards can enter the deck, you see how futile it is to wait for perfect predictability.

We are seeing these same trends on a national scale in states like Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Additionally, the housing market is no longer driven solely by local buyers. Foreign buyers can purchase homes in the United States even if they do not reside here, and massive institutional investors like Blackstone have purchased vast amounts of inventory in states like Georgia and New Jersey. When people argue that locals cannot afford the housing, they overlook the reality that wealthy outside buyers and corporate conglomerates can and will buy those homes.

Supply and Demand Rule the Market

The fundamental driver of home prices is not local wage averages, but simple supply and demand. If there is more inventory than demand, prices will drop, but today we face a severe national inventory shortage. Even if foreclosures were to increase, the financial institutions would not repeat the mistakes of 2008. Instead of flooding the market and causing a crash, banks would drip-feed the properties slowly or sell them in bulk portfolios behind the scenes to large investment corporations. Waiting for a flood of cheap foreclosures is waiting for a past that banks have active financial incentives never to repeat.

The Bottom Line

Stop waiting for a magical housing crash that is not going to happen. I recently moved to Florida, rented for two years to learn the area, and bought my owner-occupied home last year. Despite the doomsday predictions that the Florida and Texas markets are cooked, my new home has already gone up in value. If you qualify for a mortgage, find a home you truly love, and can afford the monthly payment, buy it. The best path forward is to get pre-approved, understand your budget, and start shopping without fear of the doomsday headlines.