Compare and contrast to this article about the South Florida market that appeared in the NY Times, March 25, 2005:
Trading Places: Real Estate Instead of Dot-Coms
Real estate-crazed Americans have started behaving in ways that eerily recall the stock market obsession of the late 1990's.
In Naples, Fla., some houses have been bought twice in a single day, an early-21st-century version of day trading. Buying stocks on margin has morphed into buying homes with no money down. The over-the-top parties of Internet start-ups have been replaced by flashy gatherings where developers pitch condos to eager buyers.
Premonitions of a bubble on the verge of popping do not ruffle those who are bullish on real estate. In Miami, Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realtors, predicted that a limited supply of land coupled with demand from baby boomers and foreigners would prolong the boom indefinitely.
"South Florida," he said, "is working off of a totally new economic model than any of us have ever experienced in the past."
The can't-miss aura of real estate has also helped nudge many families to invest more of their personal wealth in real estate by buying more expensive homes and taking on riskier mortgages - much as ordinary workers used their 401(k) plans to bet on company stocks.
There are certainly serious reasons to believe that house prices will not suffer the fate of technology stocks. Not only are houses more tangible, but people do not sell their homes as quickly as stocks, making a panic much less likely.
Because of tax advantages, few owners are likely to sell and rent something else simply because local house prices start to decline. :roll:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/business/25boom.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
