BG, a willingness to pay does not necessarily mean homes aren’t over-priced. After all, people showed willingness to buy at the height of the bubble, and homes very clearly weren’t worth what someone was willing to pay. Willingness to pay is a concept borrowed from fine art auction houses, where superfluous cash of high net worth individuals is seeking an alternative place to park itself. The same cannot be said of ‘common or garden’ real estate. ‘Deceived into believing’ might be a more appropriate term that still describes the prevailing ethos.
