for slum rentals long before the middle class puts the cash together to buy them" Not if prices are declining, unless they like to watch money disappear or just like to call themselves investors to impress their friends. Comment by nickpapageorgio 2012-08-28 20:39:04 Blame took the words right out of my mouth. Comment by Carl Morris 2012-08-29 08:01:52 Carl, I don't think that that would ever happen, at least not Where the Jobs Are. A $300K house will never drop to, say $90K. Investors have a LOT more cash than middle-class households ever will, and they will snap those homes up for slum rentals long before the middle class puts the cash together to buy them. Those kind of drops already happened, but as you say, not Where The Jobs Are. But that shows it can happen. Regarding investors, I think we have a different definition of "truly bottom". By my definition we would run out of investors before we ran out of nearly-free houses. Comment by oxide 2012-08-29 13:45:32 Yes, I did find a few McMansions in Vegas which which dropped 60% from 2005. I don't think you'd see it in DC. I guess there are more houses than investors on a national scale, but it's unevenly distributed. In DC area, I think we could find an investor for every property, if only for the land value, even if the investors came from a thousand miles away. And what would be left over after the bottom feeders are done..