Interest rates across Australia are still elevated compared to a few years back, which affects how much you can actually borrow and what your repayments look like - that's the piece people sometimes gloss over when they focus only on falling prices. The real question isn't whether prices might drop another 5 or 10 percent, but whether you're in a position to absorb rate rises if they happen, whether you need the stability of your own place right now, and honestly, whether you'd sleep better owning versus renting. If you're buying because you want to stop paying someone else's mortgage in five years and you can handle the repayments today, falling prices are a bonus. But if you're banking on catching the absolute bottom before prices bounce back, you're essentially trying to time the market, which is basically a coin flip.