Some time in 2004 or so, I typed “real estate, bubble, mania, California” or something to that effect into google. From that search, I found piggington, and something about shiller’s irrational exuberance book (the second edition, which had a bunch of stuff on the emerging housing bubble). At the time, I was begining to feel like a tinfoil hat wearing guy talking about the market in LA. Shortly after reading shiller, I decided to just keep my mouth shut and my wallet closed. I was more or less priced out of the market anyway, but anytime I felt any cognitive dissonance, I would reread Shiller or check to see if Rich had written any new posts.
Shiller seems like an extremely conservative guy (not in the political sense, but dispositionally). Even in his book, he would lay out data that just seemed devestating and he would follow it with “but, it is impossible to predict what will happen in the short term in any market,” or some other huge hedge. He just seems like one of those (rare) people who is actually a little uncomfortable about people following his advice. Ironically, it makes me trust him more. I’ll admit I don’t really follow what he is saying about the market these days…it just seems pretty self-evident to everyone how screwed everything is.
