Bonus question: what IS actually a good time vs. a bad time to buy a house, if that is an actual thing?
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Usually, they’re looking at balance of buyers vs. sellers… when there are more buyers than sellers, it means fewer choices and fiercer competition among buyers. That drives up prices = bad time to buy. When there are more sellers than buyers, then buyers have more choice and more leverage to negotiate the price down = good time to buy. There are also other factors, like mortgage interest rates and how those affect affordability, general affordability (prices relative to incomes), and future prospects for the economy.
In addition to people being interested in buying homes in recent years due to COVID (spending more time at home, work/school from home, etc) the super low interest rates also made homes much more affordable at each price point — a $350k mortgage at 5% interest is same monthly payment as a $450k loan at 3%. So even higher priced homes were still affordable to many buyers… but now we’re seeing a reversal, where interest rates have doubled to 6% as the Fed raises rates to fight inflation, but sellers who’ve heard nothing but tight markets and skyrocketing home values are still often in denial that buyers’ budgets are severely cut by the new higher mortgage rate and there are much fewer buyers at each price point that just 3-4 months ago.
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