The latter. And if you live in Florida, Arizona, or California . . . this is well known and nothing new. Yawn.
It's not nonsense, it's dramatization. Those numbers are old news and updated frequently. Now if you said something similar about credit cards with numbers to back it up, then maybe it's worth a discussion. Because the credit card issue currently is not part of the pre-existing market sentiment yet, so it has shock value if something bad were to come out.
Im afraid we gots lots to go around these here parts...Ugly isnt here yet IMO....so while its nothing new housing is going down...it going to be a surprise to see the magnitude when its all said and done...Cranes as far as the eye can see...just like we were in awe when it went up...we aint there on the other direction yet...people are going to start jumping off them overpriced boxes in the sky...
As with most market cliches, your statement sounds like it comes from snake-oil rhetoric and is only partly true. Market "anticipates SOME changes" (often wrong about its anticipations, too)... that's about it.
I guess the market priced in nascent tech companies that never turned a single profit, and produced nothing but websites and 'growth projections' on powerpoint, popping with a loud, vicious 'snapping' sound, before the event. And that, also, was obvious in its tell, prior to happening. ...Pets.com, Ariba, Exodus, Digital Island, InfoSpace, Inktomi, Mercury Interactive, Sonera...
Amazing that in the middle of all these troubles, the slimiest, sleaziest, leeching industry, aka legal, is prospering. Just sad, really.
You're correct. We already had the "crash" ala the 1930's. It was Tech 2000-2003. This is the 70's. And yes the risk is a Miami condo trading for a million worthless dollars rather than finding no buyers above zero.