It helps me if I decouple the amount of money that I spent on a possible house purchase like that (in terms of loss or cost to own):
Money lost (interest , HOA, mello roos , maintenance ) – money saved (principal payment) + house depreciation
House appreciation / depreciation is unknown (just kidding – 10% is pretty much in the bag, negative of course)
Everything else is deterministic, so make appreciation flat (just for fun) and see for 1 year what you would have spent/saved. Then try with depreciation at 10 %.
You get a number which is your yearly cost to own. Compare it with yearly cost to rent for similar house in similar neighborhood.
Then you can judge how delaying your buying for 1 year would affect you financially.
My advice is to pick a neighborhood that you would like to buy in and find a house to rent. In 1 year you re-evaluate your buying desire again (financially). You can even buy the house that you rented much cheaper plus you would have some money saved.
