Personally I think prices will continue to deteriorate some more here in the next year or 2 but if you found the perfect home for you and your family and you can comfortably afford the payments (including HOA and property taxes, Mello Roos, etc) AND plan to live in it for a longer period of time then you are perfectly fine.
If the house isn’t the perfect fit for you and your family and you’re not in any big hurry to move, I certainly don’t think you will lose anything waiting a bit longer.
Like you, I waited on the sidelines for many years but I recently bought a home 2 months ago and perfectly happy with my decision.
I’m over in your neck of the woods as I bought in Santaluz so I have higher HOA and Mello Roos but the schools are great in that area and the quality of life is excellent. I think you have to just mentally decide whether you accept to live in a MR area and if so, you bite the bullet and do it.
Just as the housing bulls thought house prices would go up forever….now you have housing bears that think housing will go down forever. Things move in cycles. Housing isn’t going to go down forever.
While I do think house prices in that area can dip some more. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, unless you leveraged yourself beyond what you can comfortably afford.
Also, on high end homes, rental prices are fairly expensive in San Diego so if you are going to be in the house long term you have to look at all the numbers.
I say enjoy your new home and try not to stress about it too much. Yeah, prices can go down some more but it’s just about impossible to perfectly time the absolute highs and the absolute lows.
