NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - My husband and I disagree about whether now is the right time to buy a home. He thinks we should buy now because he doesn't want to miss out on low rates. I think we should wait because I believe the housing market is overvalued. I'm also hesitant because we're both financial analysts for a large corporation that is aggressively outsourcing financial analyst jobs. What do you think?

-- Alice H.

Well, the first thing I think is that you and your hubby are going to have to come to some sort of consensus on this issue.

Here are some issues you and your husband might consider in your confab.

The most important one, I think, is job security. Unless I knew I had enough resources to make my mortgage payment for six or more months without a regular income, I couldn't imagine buying a house.

So I think your first priority is to get a sense of just how vulnerable your jobs are, and to assess whether you have savings you could fall back on to make mortgage payments.

The next issue is whether homes in your area are overvalued -- it's this is a tough one.

You should be able to get a sense of whether your local housing market has been hot or cold in recent years and whether the market is stable, improving or deteriorating.

Local real estate agents should be able to tell you how much prices have increased over the past couple of years and how long houses have stayed on the market before selling. If those price increases have been in the double digits year to year and houses have been selling within 30 days of listing, then your housing market has been hot. Another indicator of a torrid market is that houses sell at or above the listing price.

You can see the growth rate in housing prices in more than 100 markets tracked by National Association of Realtors here.

As for gauging the current state of the market and what that might mean for the future, you can check these signs: if the inventory of homes for sale has been steadily rising, chances are the market has begun to cool. Similarly, if the time a house stays on the market starts getting into the 60 days or longer period, the market is also chilling.

When sellers start accepting bids well below the asking price or begin making other concessions such as throwing in the furniture or paying points on the buyer's mortgage, that's usually another sign that the market dynamics are swinging in favor of the buyer vs. the seller.

Already, some of the hotter real estate markets on both coasts have begun showing signs that the salad days may be wilting.

I should add, however, that the mere fact that the market may be cooling off does not mean a housing crash is in the offing. Typically, only markets where buyers engage in a feeding frenzy that drives prices into the stratosphere experience drops in home values on the order of 10 to 20 percent or more.

If you live in an area, however, where the price increases have been relatively moderate over the past few years, chances are you would see price increases level off, stagnate or decline only slightly as opposed to coming crashing down around you.

As to whether or not you should hold off buying in anticipation of declining prices, my feeling is that such a strategy might make sense only in a market where prices have really been on a tear in recent years -- and even then you have to decide how long you would want to wait.

If prices drift down slowly, it could take a couple of years for them to hit bottom. You also run the risk that prices won't drop or that they don't drop very much, so you essentially give up time that you could be spending in a home you enjoy.

If, after gauging the health of your market, you feel prices have begun to level off or drop, you could launch what I would call an extended exploratory house search -- look at lots of houses, try to get a sense of how eager or frantic sellers are to unload, see how amenable to lower offers sellers are -- just to see whether you can find something that's just perfect for you at a bargain price.

To learn more about the current state of the housing market -- and to get the names of some markets experts believe are overvalued -- I suggest you read "Is The Housing Boom Over?", a story that appears in the latest issue of Fortune magazine.

The final issue is interest rates, and how much of a disadvantage you would suffer if you buy after rates rise. Clearly, you're better off with a lower mortgage rate than a higher one.

Going from a 6 percent to a 7 percent rate on a 30-year fixed rate $200,000 loan, for example, means increasing your payment $132 a month from $1,199 to $1,331 a month.

But you've also got to have realistic expectations when it comes to rates. And the fact is, there's no way we can ever be sure we're hitting the low point in interest rates. Earlier this year when it appeared the economy was ready to kick into a higher gear, everyone expected interest rates would begin a sustained climb upward from their near-40-year lows.

Well, rates did start to climb, but then they began heading south again. Indeed, over the past three months, rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have largely trended downward. That doesn't mean they won't reverse course and head back up again.

Truth is that predicting the path of interest rates is a dicey business. Even if they do climb, you still have options.

You can look for mortgages that have lower initial rates than a traditional 30-year-fixed rate loan -- a one-year adjustable-rate loan, for example, or mortgages that have fixed rates for, say, three or five years and then go to an adjustable rate. If rates come down in the meantime, there's always the option of refinancing.

Ultimately, I don't think it makes sense to rush into a house purchase just because you're worried interest rates might rise. If rates are low and you're ready to buy, fine -- move swiftly. But don't jump into a big commitment just because you think you might miss what you think (but can't be sure) is a bottom in rates.

One thing I'd add is that I don't think it makes sense to buy a home in any circumstances -- and particularly in your situation -- unless you think it's likely you would stay in the home at least five years, and preferably more like seven to 10.

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Otherwise, you're spending a lot in closing and selling costs for a short period of home ownership. And if prices should dip after you buy, you could end up having to sell at a loss.

Obviously, you and your husband are going to have to evaluate all these issues in your home market and decide how comfortable you feel about buying or postponing.

I can't tell you what choice is right, but I can say that you'll feel more comfortable with whatever you decide if both of you feel it's the right thing to do.

Walter Updegrave is a senior editor at MONEY Magazine and is the author of "We're Not in Kansas Anymore: Strategies for Retiring Rich in a Totally Changed World."