Real Estate Bubble

[lentinman]

FA:

I think the only thing wrong with your analogy is that there could never be 50% of the houses for sale because that would mean 50% of the population was wanting to move at any given moment.

But, in principle, there is some magic number of for sale signs that would probably represent the bottom. However, even then, many people probably would have pulled their houses off the market - skewing the numbers.

I think it is similar to the unemployment situation. There is much higher unemployment than is being reported because lots of people have abandoned looking and have long ago used up their unemployment benefits. Whether they give up looking for a job or give up selling their house, it still hides the number of people who want to do either.

Len