[quote=walterwhite]What if there were some way to get potential buyers organized to extinguish demand for one week. It might have no more effect than a one week gasoline strike, but it would be an interesting consciousness raiser. all buyers would have no loayalty to each other and would of course pounce on the first good deal while the competition was oon strike, but imagine the press. it could be kinda neat.[/quote]
Bearishgirl, I feel your frustration. The elimination of mark to market in 2009 http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marktomarket.asp allows banks to have those depreciated assets on their books and not realize the loss until they sell. This is why there is so much shadow inventory. Banks don’t want to sell since they only realize the loss if they do sell. Granted, mark to market was rapidly lowering the housing market before 2009 http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/29/mark-to-market-oped-cx_ng_0929gingrich.html but this is an example of the government potentially making things worse as investors don’t know what the real value of homes are with so much shadow inventory out there.