The initial definition of a bubble is any pricing trend that exceeds the normal range of increases by more than one magnitude. Prior to earlier this year, the anti-bubble crowd always completely denied there even was a bubble or that there would ever be a “correction” of any type – it was the New Paradigm. Then when that didn’t pan out they backed down and said it would be a Soft Landing with a very mild correction of 5% or 8% soon to be followed by another round of increases. Then when it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen they just gave up and acknowledged that things are bad, getting worse and there’s no end in sight. If you want to talk about a group who was completely wrong to begin with and compounded their ignorance with their arrogance I suggest you look elsewhere ’cause this ain’t where all that occurred.
Given the illiquidity of real estate and the notoriously slow pace of trends in RE, I think what we’ve seen so far definitely qualifies as a bursting bubble. Moreover, if anyone thinks the damage is limited to some new home projects they’re completely out of the loop. The damage is worse in a lot of the older neighborhoods, and not just by a little bit.
Another thing our OP missed was that we didn’t really get involved in saying when it would happen, and at any rate the timing wasn’t the important part anyway. This site was always about how overextended the market was relative to the historical trends, how it got that way, and how the markets would take away virtually all of the gains when those enabling factors reversed. A reverse, by the way, that NAR and the permabulls originally said would never come. Ever.
If you want to point the “gotcha” finger at a group who backed the wrong horse, it ain’t gonna be us.