I've been looking at the local real estate market for quite some time. People are buying like crazy. Less and less of them are choosing to hold money in the banks and everyone is telling me to buy real estate. This seems to be the dream of every young and old, to have a portfolio of apartments for rent. Who is going to live in your apartment when everyone around you starts to own a spare one? There's not enough people coming to towns to satisfy the market.
At the same time companies are building more and more. There's flats and houses for sale everywhere and new ones are cheaper than the old ones. Why? Because people bought them years ago for e.g. 100k USD and then invested another 20k into remodelling and furnishing. They would like to get at least 100k back, but developers are pumping cheap new flats for 90k now, who's going to buy a used, older one for 100?
These sellers are now waiting because they think it will normalize, but it won't because new ones are still built.
In a couple years people will start lowering the prices of old properties to be able to sell at all and developers will run out of options, because they are building on credit, they have to keep selling. The real estate bubble will have to burst, it's inevitable.
Are you noticing the same pattern around you where every person is trying to save up for a house to rent or buy cheap, remodel and sell with a profit (so called swaps)?