Regarding the question about renting before buying, I believe home ownership should be viewed as a long term investment, and the oddities of the current market won't have a real effect on the outcome.
What I am trying to say is this: If you rent in TV for a few months as a way to make a decision on what neighborhood you like, what house you want, etc, you may be doing the right thing. Although agonizing over this decision may be a waste - it's almost a place where you can't go wrong - and minimal study worked for me. We visited TV with the intention to buy if we liked it, and assumed we could sell if we decided later we didn't. We did buy, and I doubt we'd ever sell it as it's a great home in a great neighborhood. I can rattle off 10 things I like about my neighborhood as I'll bet almost anyone else can about their's.
So if you rent for say 1 or 2 months as a way to assure yourself it's the right place for you, it could be a good decision.
However, if your intention is to rent for a long time waiting for the bottom of the slump to come, I think it's a mistake. A years worth of rental at $1500/month is $18,000, $2000 per mo is $24K. You'd need the market to drop $18K to $24K more to make that decision a good financial decision. Depending on the house you ultimately wind up buying, it would be a minimal 10% additional drop on a Patio Villa priced at $180K today, or 5% on a Designer with a view ($360K). It's a gamble that may or may not pay off.
Buying that same house now allows you to avoid throwing that $18K to $24K away, allowing you on paper at least to say you saved that money.
In time, your house will be worth more than it is today. No question about it. Prices will rise. Nothing about the current economy will change that overall fact. Certainly, there have been dips in both home prices and the overall economy before. But over some time it will rise.
Two real estate adages always worked for me:
1) There are 3 important factors in real estate decisions: location, location, location.
2) The time to buy is now.
So do your part to improve the economy now - buy that house in TV!
