It's too bad Japan didn't drop its confiscatory tax on real estate "gains", instead.
That tax means that every home-seller ends up with less money to buy a "replacement house". As a result, most home-owners stay put (in spite of zero low interest rates) and endure multi-hour commutes.
Small houses. Long, body-numbing commutes. Hmmmm...
Does this explain Japan's falling population?
Incidently, Japan's "housing bubble" was driven by a shortage of supply (qv: Japan's confiscatory real estate transfer tax, referenced above). A "market" with few transactions is (unsurprisingly) very volatile.
I'd like to think that you know that market conditions in the US are significantly different from market conditions in Japan.
But I don't...
I was using Japan to illustrate that there are situations in which demand so evaporates that lowering rates becomes the equivalent of pushing on a string.
And btw, we are also starting to push on a string here in the USA.