“Wait until prices come down.” “Buy now before they go up.” “Interest rates will fall next year.” “Interest rates will rise next year.” Anyone trying to decide when to buy a home will hear every one of these, often from the same person in the same week.
Timing is one of the most anxious parts of any property decision. When to buy, when to sell, when to start building, when to move back home from abroad. We want to get it right, and we are terrified of getting it wrong. So we refresh the listings, read the forecasts, ask one more friend, and wait for a certainty that never quite arrives.
The myth of the perfect moment
Here is an uncomfortable truth: nobody knows the perfect time to buy. Not the estate agent, not the economist on the radio, not your cousin who “knows property”. Markets move for reasons that are difficult to predict, and what looks like a peak in hindsight felt like a steady climb at the time.
Consider a couple in Toronto who spent four years waiting for prices to drop before buying. In some of those years prices fell slightly; in others they rose. The couple’s savings grew, but so did their rent. By the time they bought, they were not sure whether waiting had helped or hurt. What they did know was that they had spent four years in a kind of suspended life, unwilling to paint the rented walls or join a local church properly, because they were always “about to move”.
Waiting can be wise. It can also become a way of avoiding a decision, dressed up as prudence.
My times are in Your hand
David wrote Psalm 31 in a season of real danger: enemies around him, friends deserting him, his strength failing. In the middle of it he says, “My times are in Your hand” (Psalm 31:15, NKJV). It is not a statement that everything will work out on his schedule. It is a statement of where his times ultimately rest.
That shift matters for property decisions. If my times are in God’s hand, then I do not have to carry the full weight of timing the market perfectly. I am still responsible for making a sensible, prayerful decision with the information I have. But I am not responsible for knowing the future. That belongs to Someone else.
Ecclesiastes says there is a time to plant and a time to pluck up, a time to break down and a time to build up (Ecclesiastes 3:2-3). The Teacher does not say we will always know which time it is. He simply says the seasons are real, and that God “has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
Better questions than “Is it the right time?”
Since we cannot know the market’s future, it often helps to ask questions we can actually answer. Instead of “Is now the right time to buy?”, try:
- Is it the right time for us? Are our jobs reasonably stable? Do we plan to stay in this area for several years?
- Can we afford it with room to spare? Could we still manage the payments if interest rates rose or one income dropped for a while?
- Do we have a cushion? Is there money set aside for repairs and emergencies after the deposit and costs?
- Is this the right property, regardless of market mood? Would we be glad to live here even if its value stayed flat for years?
- Have we sought good counsel? A mortgage adviser, an attorney-at-law, a trusted older believer who has been through it.
If the honest answers are yes, then the market’s next move matters less than it seems. If they are no, then even a “perfect” market moment might not be right for you.
When waiting is the faithful choice
Sometimes, trusting God with your times means waiting. The deposit is not quite there. The marriage is under strain and a mortgage would add pressure. The job is on a short contract. In those seasons, waiting is not failure. It is wisdom, and it can be lived fully rather than on hold: paint the rented walls, plant something in pots, join the church, get to know the neighbours.
When moving is the faithful choice
Other times, trusting God means acting without certainty. You have prayed, counted the cost, sought advice, and the numbers work. Still, fear says wait one more year. There comes a point where further waiting is not trust but anxiety. Faith sometimes looks like signing the papers with a steady hand and leaving the future where it belongs.
Whichever season you are in, the same truth holds. Your times, including the date on the sale agreement, are in His hand. That does not guarantee that prices will behave. It does mean you do not have to carry the weight of the future on your own shoulders.
This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.
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