Pretty sure the trolls will come in sometime soon blaring their horns about how they made huge profits investing in "affordable" US property during the GFC and selling now.
The BIS has a paper on "The housing meltdown: Why did it happen in the United States?" It is written by Luci Ellis, now the head of financial stability at RBA.
It seems like the housing situation in USA will be down for the next few years at least (or even longer, but perhaps not as decade long as Japan).
One of the key reason is the tax deductable interest. (see sect 3.2)
But it is hard to say if she is right, she also claim that there is no Housing Bubble in Australia. hahaha
I will know when I sell my Perth houses. I have interested buyers already calling the builder.
It is hard to time the market to make some capital gains on US housing. Not with the kind of unemployment levels in the US currently. People tend to be mobile and rent when jobs are scarce.