zzz, I lived through the early 1980’s recession and I was a RE investor/participant in the early 1990’s recession. And that’s exactly what happened. Even when many places could be purchased for cashflow positive rents, the fear of job loss and/or job relocation trumped it. I believe we may well see this again. Imagine having a rental where if you get one or two months of non-occupancy, you have to cover the payments and you’ve lost your job! So now, you’ve got your own mortgage as well as the mortgage on your rental to cover. Scary scenario!
I cant remember the exact correlation but it’s a curve that’s rather steep. I lost the data about a year ago. But both Carlos Royal and Bruce Norris have very good data on this. They’re both pretty well known local RE investors.

Many people on this site have not lived through this, so it’s hard for them to understand how easily this can actually happen. But it can. Unemployment is a RE killer. The facts for this are overwhelmingly strong.