Low-interest rates, lax-lending and speculative fever drove a boom in property demand, size and opulence over the past decade in most of the world's major cities. Now home prices are unaffordable for most and debt is maxed out everywhere, just as aging owners are looking to cash out and lower expenditures en masse. The predictable result is a massive supply of expensive properties with few able and willing buyers, and this is having similar effects everywhere.
A significant drop in prices back to more affordable levels will be part of the solution, but even then