We bought June last year. We left a lovely flat in a great area, with fantastic landlords that had not put the rent up once. There are times through our current renovations where we wonder if we've done the right thing by plowing all of our life savings into the house and the work on it. Then we look at what's happening in the rental sector and "yeah, nope". Even had we stayed there for a few more years and been relatively happy, this inflation will probably eventually push house prices up even further (it's never ending in this country, let's face it) and we'd struggle even more to afford anything. We were fortunate enough to have a decent deposit so our mortgage is not really more than our rent was, so even if prices crash.. well who cares really we're here to stay for as long as we're working