$400 rent for something with more space is cheap - trust me. Your mortgage repayments will be something twice this much if you bought the same house. Why are you considering buying when you can rent that cheap??
If you are pretty certain that you are going to live in that house for the next 30 years then it doesn't matter if prices plummet. So buy now. However, my best advice would be to continue to rent in a bigger house until prices bottom out - then buy. I don't when that will be it might be one year or ten years away.
