The best time to buy a house is when interest rates are low and prices are also low. This hasn’t happened since the invention of money, though, so I wouldn’t hold out for it.
The best time to buy a house is when you have three years of solid income behind you—that way, you can get a good rate for your mortgage. If this is impossible, the next best time to buy a house is never.
The best time to buy a house is when your second child starts walking. By this point, you should have enough saved for the down payment, because what else could you possibly be spending money on?
The best time to buy a house is when you’ve finally decided where you want to live for the rest of your life. The only caveat here is that the place you decide upon must be North Dakota, because you can’t afford to live anywhere else. South Dakota maybe, if you want to cut out unnecessary expenses such as dental care and solid food.
The best time to buy a house is when insanely high prices deflate demand, but also when you’ve managed to find the one affordable house in all of New York state. For some fortuitous reason, it’s not listed on Redfin or Zillow or StreetEasy—because it’s a porta-potty. But at least it’s a half bath in Manhattan!
The best time to buy a house is when you meet a really, really, really pushy realtor who persuades you to blow your life savings on a studio apartment two and a half hours from your office. But at least it’s a half bath in rural Delaware!
The best time to buy a house is when you don’t need a house. You do need a house, though, so scratch this one.
The best time to buy a house is after the startup you work at goes public. If you don’t work at a startup, your childhood bedroom might still be available.
The best time to buy a house is when you meet a newly divorced woman who is selling her ex-husband’s house on his behalf. He will receive all the proceeds from the sale, and also he was cheating on her for thirty years. For whatever bizarre reason, she gets to decide what price the house sells for, and, honey, it’s selling for $3.95! Before you say, “This would never happen,” know that it happened at least one time, O.K.? It did. Yes, there were fourteen thousand people vying for the house, and she ultimately sold it to her daughter. But it did happen.
The best time to buy a house is after the crypto crash of early 2022, so crypto owners aren’t on the prowl for a new place, but before the crypto crash of late 2022, so you still have some crypto left (to, you know, pay for a house). The good news is that this real-estate investment vastly improves the safety of your portfolio. You once owned eighteen Dogecoin; now you own a half bath in Idaho. Who knew they even made those?
Actually, the best time to buy a house is 2019. Your crypto was doing much better then.
The best time to buy a house is when they eventually turn Twitter headquarters into residential real estate.
The best time to buy a house is to inherit a house.
The best time to buy a house is in a Victorian novel where there are a ton of abandoned houses just kind of lying around. The house may be haunted, but it’s not in a co-op, so the maintenance fees are reasonable.
The best time to buy a house is after a plague wipes out ninety-six per cent of the Earth’s population. Ninety-seven per cent, if you want a walk-in closet.
The best time to buy a house is when you’re the last person left alive. You will still have to contend with a seven-per-cent interest rate, though, because God’s a sick bitch. ♦
