It’s pretty f***ing mornic that we’ve set up or allowed to be set up, a system where a 20% drop in home prices collapses the whole works. Why the heck is our economy rigged to require ever-increasing home prices?
It is not organized very well to deal with deflation, loss of profits, or price drops in major investments.
Just the way it's always been in America ~ it's a land of opportunity.
No one expected homes to become 20% less costly to purchase in a short period of time.
I suspect that lower labor costs in new construction, plus the lumber cost advantages NAFTA has given us, combined to undermine home prices.
BTW, those lower labor costs were a direct result of the importation by business of millions of Mexicans and other Latin Americans to do such work.
Add to that some well run "mob" scams and you have the whole equation.
We must control our borders to protect us from predatory pricing.