3 ms·
I think the big moment, if it comes, is when you can envision the difference between how people value the asset in question and how that asset is actually value
by bgilroy26 7y ago
I think the big moment, if it comes, is when you can envision the difference between how people value the asset in question and how that asset is actually valued. In the case of the housing market, most people in 2003 pictured suburbification and the generation of baby boomer retirement communities as inevitable economic engines. But in the same era, Arrested Development the TV show was skewering over-production of prefab houses and they were closer to the truth.
If you could make an analogous case today that the majority of the companies that make up the S&P 500 are over-valued then you could presage the popping of the ETF bubble. In this case, however, the population size of the S&P 500 is much easier to monitor than the population of houses in the US Housing Market, which in 2003 were being built far from Wall Street in pockets of Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. In addition, companies can be subbed in and out of the index with ease in a way that houses cannot pop in and out of the market.
That is why I think the housing bubble pop in 06/07 is not analogous to the current era with ETFs
- edmundsauto 7y agoIs your suggestion that overproduction of housing is what caused the bubble?
- swsieber 7y agoI could see overproduction of housing as a sign of the bubble. E.g. why are we suddenly giving out more loans?
- mtanski 7y agoNew large generation (Millenials) coming to the housing market. Low interest rates driving folks to refinance. New housing is flat YoY if you look at "House Starts" statistics.
- bgilroy26 7y agoIt was a lagging effect of the bubble. The 'build anything, people will buy it' approach resulted from people's excessive faith in housing and the widespread idea that prices could only appreciate, which I take to be the true cause of the housing bubble.