Let me paint a picture of our housing markets, economy, monetary policy, and political environment in and around 1980 as I remember it.
The late 1970s had seen a runup in inflation to frightening heights by 1980. The hapless President Carter had appointed perhaps the worst loose money Fed president ever (Miller), had implemented failed domestic and foreign policies, and investors, voters, and consumers were desperate for inflation hedges like gold ($800), silver, and real estate. Houses ran up in price, helped in CA by Prop. 13 (1978), which roughly cut onerous property taxes in half and promised they would not rise more than 2% annually on held property. A lot of money was made on CA houses from 1977 to about 1980.
Seeing a rise of inflation and loss of confidence approaching a Weimer Republic scale, tough guy and new Fed Chairman Paul Volcker was willing to put the economy through a ringer to kill it. The graphs in previous posts tell that tale.
In economic circles, monetarist Milton Friedman displaced fiscal policy-oriented Maynard Keynes, and tight money was the result. The public accepted this harsh medicine as the price we had to pay to get our economy back. Consider the contrast with today, when politicians and the public quake in fear at hard times and are unwilling to let the market take its course.
Inflationary psychology had to be destroyed, and it took the first few years of the 1980s and Reagan as president and Volcker as Fed chief to do it. Housing appreciation did NOT bounce back much until mid-decade and then really took off in the late 1980s.
While there may be some parallels between that period and today, there are many differences. The big difference was less leverage then (by home buyers, financial institutions, etc.). You generally had to have 20% down to buy a house. There were fewer exotic tools to hide high leverage then. There was more of a willingness to accept hard times and tough policies to get back on track. Above all, there was a deep and widespread fear of hyperinflation, and a bitterness against government by savers and the elderly who saw prices rise 13% annually while their passbook savings accounts paid 5%, which was taxable. It would be hard to describe their rage, and they took it out on President Carter.
