“could this be the first asset bubble in history to not revert to the mean”
Have you seen the historical graph by Shiller? It showed that home prices climbed by 60% (national average) in 1943-1947. After that, prices stayed flat through the 70s! Not even the 1958 or 1968 recessions made prices drop. Even the OPEC-driven recession of 1973-1974 had no adverse effect on RE prices.
No one knows what will happen in the near future. I’m expecting house prices to drop, but I may be wrong, as there are many factors at play. It would be naive to expect the RE cycle to necessarily behave like the last two downturns (early 80s and early 90s), when history shows that each cycle has different timing and dynamics.
