I remember in early 2001 I was listening to a NPR show about people who lost a lot of money in the dot com/stock market crash. A couple interviewed mentioned that they completely pulled out of the stock market and were only investing in residential real estate. Not knowing anything about the status real estate at the time(we purchased in Encinitas end of 1995), I thought that they were going to loose more money chasing the next trend. Of course I had no idea how big the bubble would get and no idea when the bubble would burst.