Real estate - particularly residential real estate - is an extremely important factor when discussing recessions in the modern era. To a certain extent, real estate is where economic theory goes to die. One possibility is that the theory was largely developed when the norms in real estate investment were conservative, so attention was moved to the industrial sector. However, the herd tendencies in the housing market may now overwhelm the industrial cycle.
(This article is a set of notes about the housing market. I started laying out my book on recessions, and I realised