Buying dream home during a crash

[Niteesh Singh]

Prices in my area which is hamilton, Ontario have dropped around 25-30% from the peak (Feb 2022). I and my wife have been investing since 2019 and have 3 properties (7 doors) till now bringing in approx 7500 CAD per month in rental income, we have achieved this by living a frugal life while trying to increase our Tech incomes. 

we are actively making offers on duplex conversion sfh but are getting outbid mostly because we keep offer conservative due to the declining prices.  However I’ve noticed a trend that the premium properties (2500 to 3000 sq ft) which were 1.2 M to 1.5 million have quickly lost lot of value and are now around 875k to 1.1M range. We all know more rate hikes are coming and it will put more pressure specially on the higher end properties due to the affordability crisis. We are blessed that we can qualify for that range easily even if mortgage rates  reach 7% (are between 5 to 6 right now), I even paid off my Corolla few months back to increase our affordability. Should we focus on buying our dream home instead of looking for our next investment property ?, we won’t have to sell our current duplex in which we live and can rent out the upper unit for an additional 2500CAD to make it self sustaining asset. Also, even in our dream home we plan to add a legal basement suite for additional income :) as I don’t want to pay the outrageous mortgage alone 😀. 
OR should we delay gratification once again and just find the next duplex conversion n wait a bit more for our dream home. Im really confused, please share your opinions, would really appreciate it.