My recommendation is wait. See how the retail sales are this Xmas. If it does not improve compared to last Xmas or gets worst, then real estate in the area will stagnate or go lower. Bad retail sales also mean commercial real estate (malls and office buildings) will collapse. Currently federal TALF money is giving them some breathing room on the balloon mortgages coming due in 2010. When you go shopping in the area, take note on how many office and mall vacancies there are in the area. Alot of for lease signs or empty stores in the strip malls as well as the indoor malls (pay attention to the anchor stores, they are the life blood for foot traffic for the smaller stores) provide good clues.
If you want to wait, wait. The winter is a traditional down time. For the summer the sales were up over last year. Since school started I'm worminmg 6 new clients. If you don't have to buy wait. Where we are the increased number of buyers has caused a slight increase in rpices. I'd keep my eye on the interest rates.
Commercial has it's own life. There's a trillion in loans to be re-cast and it is forcasted that a large part of that will default over the next three years.