Also an old run down house, in 2014 at the peak of the market. Barely managed to refinance a few years later without getting nailed with LMI because the property value had dropped so much. It's really only returned to what I paid for it recently. While I empathise with people who want the real estate market to crash, realise that the people who get fucked in that scenario are those on the bottom rung of the ladder. Not the people sitting up the top.
What I want is probably impossible: static real estate prices and rising wages.
Still if I had done it differently, say bought a newer place and further out, I'd probably have cursed my commute every day instead.