Crash in your mom's basement.

If crap hits the fan, and you can’t rent, market crashes, ect ect you aren’t stuck with that higher mortgage payment.

In fact, come to think of it, ever since my "come back", I never stopped buying apartments since 2004 - so I bought on the way up, during the peak, during the crash, on the way down and on the way back up to recovery phase.And I agree with you on the real estate market being hyper local - it's down to the neighborhood level not just the city level.

I was reading in one of Brandon Turners books about how he will only purchase a property for 20% less than what it’s worth in order to protect against a market crash.

The boomers at the Fed and in gov. won't allow this, but like my point above, if you suppress market forces long enough, eventually you unleash a crash and the problem gets solved chaotically.Conclusion: rent control is dumb, there are way bigger forces at play when "the rent is too damn high!"

First time home buyer, FHA 3.5% down. bought at the dip of the crash.

I doubt a nationwide housing crash is likely, some local markets could see a housing crash.

When everything crashed in 08, our market was steady. 

What your experiencing is something that happens every time the market starts to go bad, and happened previously during the 2008 crash.

Find the route where you could crash and recover.