Just want to share an anecdote. In 1999 when Lucent stock went from 82 to 72, my office mate got a mortgage on his fully paid house, because LU had dropped to 72 and he could not resist! Yes, nobody could believe LU was down to 72, and it was a screaming BUY.
We are in the same stage in RE today, as when LU was down to 72. All bubbles play out the same way. The only difference is that the stocks are more liquid and move faster. RE is illiquid. The NASDAQ crash took a year, with RE you are looking at 5-10 years. Yes it is the start of a VERY slow motion train wreck.
I have an even better LU story. A guy whose account I was “helping” with (7 figure account) got Lucent stock in the spinoff with a zero cost basis and rode that SOB right up to the top. I still have the emails I sent him ordering him to sell it when it was $100 or buy some leap puts on it. Nope, didn’t want to pay the taxes and just knew it was going much higher. Still has it but by god, he never paid those taxes!
Here’s another story. Earlier this year, did an amended tax return for similar time period for someone I attend church with. He had over $2mi in trades resulting in $250,000 in back taxes he consequently owed. Then the next year, he had lost all money and had not been trading much since. Of course those losses are still being carried forward to this day (other than the allowed max $3,000) as he has no offsetting gains, so he’ll probably die without using them. He is still trying to figure out how to pay the tax, what with his business slowing down (depended on disposable income - paints small airplanes).