How would you explain yourself, especially the prophet part, to the people that you were screaming at in 2001 who sold in 2005?
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In defense of the bears from 2001 (and I’m one of them), we were early, not necessarily wrong. If prices go below 2001 levels, inflation-adjusted, then can we admit that prices were over-valued in 2001?
It’s difficult to make predictions when the Fed and govt entities manipulate markets like they did. We’ve just seen the biggest credit bubble in history.
This was not a “housing” bubble. The normal RE cycle was topping in 2001, and it would have been the right call to hold off on buying IF the Fed didn’t let loose with the negative (real) interest rates.
It’s the loose lending that drove prices since 2001, not housing fundamentals, IMHO.
