Yes, compassion is needed, both for those fellow brave piggingtonians (hey, add that to Wikipedia!) who were teased for their early knowledge of the bubble and selling their real estate, and to those mass followers who piled in at the end, fearful to be left out of further gains.
Few people fully understand real estate cycles, so most pile in at the peak, and get out at the bottom. Just like the stock market, it is the individual investor who gets hurt. I remember too watching as people around me made fortunes in the stock market in 1999. I was a little envious. By late 2000, my envy stopped.
I blame myself for missing out on the real estate bubble. I have compassion for anybody owning a house right now; most don’t even know yet how little their main asset will be worth in a few years.
