Is the Interest Rate as Important as the Price?

You hear people saying "We're in a Buyer's Market" but what does that mean?

In order to be deemed a "Buyer's Market," a couple things need to line up:
   - Prices of Property should be low
   - Interest Rates should also be low

Lesson #1
Property Prices are extremely low, take advantage

In our current economic state property prices are along the bottom, and interest rates are really low; Perfect buying opportunity.  I recently read an article from Los Angeles Times and Michael Corbett (the author of "Before you Buy: The Homebuyer's Handbook for Today's Market) points out "Housing prices may not have hit rock bottom, but I think that people who wait to find the market's bottom are likely to miss out on the current low interest rates."

Lesson #2
Rates can be every bit as important to the cost of a deal as price

   Imagine the following:
     1. You wait on a $500,000 listing, hoping that the owner will get desperate enough to accept $450,000     (You may be thinking you snagged a good deal)
     2.  But in the time you've waited to "snag a good deal" the interest rates went up 1%

   Consequence
      Let's assume you financed $400,000 of the purchase price; The 1 percentage point difference between     a 5% mortgage an a 6% mortgage will cost you more than $90,000 over the life of a 30 year loan