Talking of a housing crash and just to illustrate how bad it is and how back it will become.
My best friend over a 5 year period bought 29 house's to rent out. He is now in a situation, due totally to his own mis reading of the market and the property price demise in a situation of having to sell all the houses or face bankruptcy.
He put all but a few on the market in March this year, and sold none. He has now put them on the market at basically cost price, Ie the mortgage he owes on them, In most cases this the value of the house/flat - 20% deposit and 10-15% rise in the house price since the last re-mortgage. Ie he is selling them 30-35% lower than the he had them on for 7 months ago!!
And they are still not selling..
He is with B&B and no chance in 18 months time of getting a new mortgage with them and facing a hike in interest rates as he goes on to their tracker rate, assuming he can!
Believe me, he has gone from making a profit to making a loss over night. Had planned on keeping these for term of the mortgage but now is finding that he is having to cover the rate increases himself.
Stupid yes.. Reason the housing market is in trouble probably. likely to get better soon.. not a chance..
Just trying to give a real life example of how and why this is all happening.