You said Also, the rich will like to shelter their wealth in real estate.
The very wealthy people that I know have gotten out of RE almost entirely, with the exception of properties they use personally, and even some of those have been dumped.
Some have fled to commercial RE and others have gone foreign. South America has some nice bargains, such as Uruguay, as well as some areas of Europe. Though that isn’t as good as it was due to the dollar’s fall–but if you bought over the last two years, the recent currency differential would actually have been in your favor. I guess the take-away is, there are always places to make money, if you have money, but I don’t think US RE will be that place for at least a decade.
