Housing always lags, usually by 18-24 months. Real estate transactions are slow - they require a bunch of research, non-fungible goods in an illiquid market, p

Housing always lags, usually by 18-24 months. Real estate transactions are slow - they require a bunch of research, non-fungible goods in an illiquid market, physically scoping out properties, financing sources that are notoriously sluggish and thorough in their diligence, and a slow closing process. And the sellers don't need to sell - they can just hold onto their places and live in them or rent them out. That means that when money dries up in the housing market, liquidity dries up before prices drop: people just hold onto their houses and don't sell them rather than take the loss. This also means that housing is pretty resilient to recessions that last < 1 year. Nationwide the '73, '80, '82, '91, and '01 recessions were barely blips to housing prices [1]. It takes a sustained downturn of > 4 years or so in a regional economy to make a serious dent in housing prices. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS