This is actually a variation of Myth 2 (You can never lose). It's worth splitting out into it's own myth because there are some who'll claim that you can only lose if you are forced to sell at the wrong time.

They will say that you can't buy at the wrong time, it's always a good time to buy, it's the selling that causes losses. If you hold on long enough with property you'll always make a profit.

First of all, let's dispense with the myth that there's no wrong time to buy. 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 have all been absolutely terrible years to buy property in Ireland. 2002, 2003 and 2004 were also arguably not great years, however that isn't so clear cut as you would have had a chance to sell for a decent profit.

That's 8 years during which it was a bad time to buy property.
When property bubbles burst they tend to give up 70% of the gains that they achieved. That means that unless you bought before, or very early in the bubble, you're likely to lose.

The later in the bubble you bought, the more you'll lose, and the less likely you are to ever recover the losses.

It doesn't make sense to say that in the long run property always increases and you'll eventually make back the losses, as long as you don't sell.

As mentioned in Myth 2, property tends to just about beat inflation, sometimes it shoots ahead, sometimes it lags behind, but it always gets dragged back to a level that's consistant with inflation.

If somethign rises exactly in line with inflation it is worth no more in 100 years than it is today, even if the amount of money you pay for it has doubled or trebled. This is because inflation erodes the value of money.

£100 in 1960 was a sizable chunk of money (In euro's that's €127).
If you have €127 today, you do not have the same amount of wealth as you did when you had £100 in 1960. Money is worth less.

So, yes, it's true that in the long run, it doesn't matter what you pay for a house because if you hold on long enough you stand a reasonable chance of gettng that amount of money back. But since that amount of money won't be worth half as much when you get it, you have still lost.

If you buy a house for twice it's value (based on inflation), and if that house falls back to it's expected value, it doesn't matter how many years of