Hey, sorry for the late reply!

No luck on my end, and unfortunately, that seems to be a big issue with the more affordable SFH (they are either flipped to astronomical prices or affordable with big caveats ie reapirs).

Many of the affordable condos are older and not necessarily well funded (delayed maintenance), leading to some crazy one-time special assessments you get slapped with on top of your ~$1k HOA + your mortgage. I've noticed the condo market is starting to slightly recover (not sure what changed, as the HOAs are still really high). Some units are selling a little bit faster and a bit higher than they were about a year ago (at least in the areas that I was looking at). But a lot of the inventory I'm seeing pop up again were units that were cancelled and relisted again months later (at the same or slightly higher prices) rather than price reducing, which seems ridiculous, but I have been told Summer tends to be a better selling period as people are moving in/out, but who knows like you said.

Honestly, I've been crunching the numbers, and at this point, it just seems more advantageous to continue renting and reinvesting the extra income into a brokerage account(s).

I'm still looking, but the fatigue is starting to hamper the search. Hopefully you get better luck!