When is the right time to get into real estate?

There is never a perfect time to get into real estate for the simple reason that there will always be an excuse that detractors of real estate will conjure up to try to stop you.

Right now it might be "well, the bubble's about to burst". Another common one is "well, now's not a good time to get into real estate because interest rates are so high." Of course interest rates were recently at 40-year lows and do you think that those same detractors who said interest rates are too high were saying "yes, they're now at 40-year lows, so go and buy some real estate"? No! Now they had another excuse, which was "interest rates have been so low for so long that prices have gone up so much the bubble is going to burst!"

In other words they'll always have an excuse why you should not do something and to show you that they have taken their own advice these people have never bought any real estate. That is why I believe that sub-consciously they are petrified that you will make a killing in real estate because then they will be saying to themselves, "I should have been doing that. I was wrong to give all this advice." It is easier for them to say, "but now's not the right time because interest rates are too high, now's not the right time because the bubble is about to burst and now's not the right time because something else is about to happen…"

It's the people who, through thick or thin, high interest rates or low interest rates, buoyant market or low market, high exchange rate or low exchange rate, have been steadily buying one house a year or maybe one house every two years, who are now looking back at their portfolio of ten or twenty houses or even five houses and doing very well indeed.

That is why it doesn't matter too much when you buy. Yes the top may come off the market, but if you're just going to buy one property and sit on it for the rest of your life, this may not be the best time to buy. If there is a down turn and it takes five years for prices to come back up, then with the benefit of hindsight it may not have been the best time to buy. However if you are bent on buying properties regularly, then you'll just ride through those times and you'll have an increasing portfolio of properties that have rental incomes and capital values indexed for inflation.