I am a RE Broker in SoCal and I don't believe we are in a true bubble. If anything does "pop," prices will just stabilize a bit or plateau. It make homes that were unaffordable, still unaffordable, but it won't feel like you're rushing to put in a crazy high bid.
The prior 2008 bubble was caused due to poor lending strategies and an over building of homes. Basically if you had a pulse, the banks lent money to you to buy a home. Prices now are skyrocketing due to low rates, pent up demand, low inventory and people putting more importance on having a homestead where they can have space and work. Most loans these days are also all A paper / full doc loans. Also most deals are all cash as well. Not many subprime mortgages.
With the feds probably hiking up the interest rates this year, that may cause the RE residential market to lose some steam, but really, not a bubble where we will see 20-30% corrections. I wish it would be true but I'm not too certain. I represent buyers and sellers too and I'm also in the market to buy a bigger home as well. Times are tough for anyone wanting to buy a home for a deal, but my mantra is that I am not going to let prices dictate my life and put my life on pause. If I need a bigger home for my family (and/or a new Tesla), and I can afford it, I'll buy it.
If you DO want to invest in real estate and possibly get a deal, wait towards the end of the first quarter 2022 and look out for when the eviction moratorium ends. Lots of multifamily owners will be evicting their tenants and hopefully trying to get out of these types of buildings. If the states extend the EM, I'm sure lots of owner will also want to sell as the building probably isn't worth it to them at that point. Just my thoughts.
This is totally off topic, but I have a local real estate broker who I became friends with, and she believes (and I agree) that a lot of this pent up demand for homes is due to the shift a lot of people have had with "WFH" and "School from home" for almost the last 2 years.
When you spend so much time at home, you start to think "maybe I need XXXX" or "wow, I really didnt notice YYY because I was working all the time, but now that I am here....."
Given that a lot of the country is experiencing an actual shift in how work will be done going forward (as in, maybe 50/50 work or office, or more flexible working situations where that wasnt an option before), "Home" is going to continue to be more important to people than it was pre pandemic.