At the beginning of my housing hunt, my fiancée and I were looking at the new developments in my area. After a few weeks, we started looking at existing homes because they offer a better value. A side benefit of looking at re-sale houses was that I can do this at home because all the listings are available online. This allowed me to check periodically to get a sense of where the market is headed. I noticed that houses would be gone from the list and re-appear a few weeks later at a reduced price. I also noticed that the same types of houses were being listed at lower price. Furthermore, more houses from higher price zip codes were becoming available with my search criteria that included an upper limit on home prices.

I feel bad for the people that bought a house last year and owe more money than the house is worth. But then again, it was these same types of people that drove the housing price to unsustainable levels so people like me would need to save so much just to afford a decent place to live.

It was not long ago when some of the home owners I know were lecturing us “renters” on how we were not smart for not buying a home. At the time, I were not too happy hearing those comments because I knew those people were not smarter than me but rather luckier than me. In 2001 when it all started, there was no way the average 21 year old would think about buying a house and be able to afford one. To put it into context, I was still in my 3^rd year of colleague. If I were already thinking how I can make money by flipping houses, I probably would not have pursued my Masters in Engineering.

There are always opportunities, and I am happy because I made the decision not to chase the performance of the home prices no matter how tempting it was or how much pressure I got from my fiancée. I look forward to the price of houses in

I will be patient and wait for my opportunities to come.