Thanks for all the replies. We aren’t trying to do a hackneyed piece about how some tragic people who misread the housing market are now to be pitied. It’s more about reminding ourselves about what it felt like during the peak of the bubble. Robert Shiller is very good on how one of the things that convinces late entrants is their sense that they’ve missed out. It’s often people who start as housing bears who eventually succumb when they see people around them making huge amounts of money. Of course there are many fools who lose money because they don’t understand that anything that goes up can go down…but it’s fascinating to explore the rhythm of bubbles and how the apparent success of investors drives a momentum. It happens in the stock market apparently too…stocks that are doing well…are often traded more than statistically they should be (since the fact that they HAVE been doing well doesn’t signify anything about their future performance). Anyway, maybe there are ways to play the housing bubble, or any bubble and still come out of it ahead of the pack…but perhaps to do that, we have to control our emotions. Thanks for taking time to comment. All interesting. The show is broadcast on 27th April.