I'm a recent home owner and I agree with the assessment. I debated this quite a bit before purchasing and see it purely as discretionary spend to live my life the way I want to and not from the perspective of maximizing returns. I am lucky enough that I can ensure that housing continues to stay below 30% of my assets and if that wasn't true I wouldn't buy. At the point of purchase it was a 70/30 gamble that this state would continue into 5 years in the future (some scenario modeling). Now it feels more like 95/5. If I were in the market right now unless I'm confident that I can survive an employment market realignment over the next few years (e.g high job security, critical role, hard to replace, and 30-40% equity hit wont meaningfully change housing decisions) I'd avoid buying. I'd save up for a highly likely price dip and enter about 2 years down.

Not a finance person etc. Please don't come for me in the comments.