Could be.
Example using my own home:
If Zillow is any guide, (maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,) exactly 1 year ago and proceeding for several months after, my home was appreciating at a rate of 6%.....A MONTH!
Then about mid-summer this stopped and by the Fall my home was appreciating at .6% a month!
Now it is appreciating at 2% a month. I have a modest, smaller home in the Phx metro market. The location is very good.
Again, I’m only going by Zillow and a couple other online listers BUT this last year seems to have some weird, unrealistic swings in it!
Recently, with losses in the residential investment unit mounting due to carrying costs, Zillow fired the leadership team and stopped new purchases. One day, these sorts of strains will be seen as the warning signs that housing was overbought and had reached unsustainable price levels.
Before the last real estate crash, an analyst in Connecticut was skeptical of the relentless price increases and the vast sums pouring into real estate via CDOs (collateralized debt obligations). He flew down to Miami-Dade to look at the subdivision his numbers showed was the epicenter of the price spikes.
Standing at the intersection that was ground zero, he saw that on the four corners, three of four homes were for sale, with the entire subdivision peppered with for sale signs. Research at the local clerk of courts and talks with local real estate experts showed a rising level of foreclosures and a spike in sales.
The analyst then raised every nickel he could and shorted interest rate options. When the crash came, he was up by about thirty million dollars.
As always though, the timing of market turns is chancy and there are people who saw the crash coming, tried the same strategy, but lost because they were too soon. And sometimes it is lucky to be late to the party.
Years ago, there was a vast run up in the prices of silver that was fueled by a billionaire intending on making silver an alternative reserve asset to gold. The silver price had risen so high that ordinary people were literally selling off family heirloom silverware because the metal value exceeded their value as objects.
My two brothers decided to get in on the silver boom and raised several thousand dollars in cash. Going to the silver merchant one morning to buy bullion, they were disappointed to find that he had sold out. That evening, the news reported that the silver prices had suffered a dramatic fall. The bubble had popped, with my brothers fortunate to have missed out entirely.