Cap Ex is the 30 yr roof with 7 yrs left and water heaters and furnaces with ever shrinking life spans.

I have never had good luck getting PT from HD because it's always soaking wet and weighs a ton, then dries up and shrinks leaving big gaps, plus half of it is usually crowned or twisted and completely unusable so it's a non-starter for me, I get that from the yard where it comes straight and dry ready to go.

I can buy at steep discounts well below the cost to build in markets that are popular areas to live and where the population is growing not shrinking, where the job market, although hit, will rebound.

Also worth noting is MHPs, generally speaking, are shrinking in number as many municipalities aren't allowing new Park development. 

This woman is no shrinking violet. 

If you want to be somewhere nicer, it will shrink from there..

So, just as California isn't actually about to start shrinking even as growth crests, so it goes with the trendy cities.

@Tom Conant, you asked: "What happens to everyone’s ‘investments’ when the market no longer grows or shrinks"?

Ben Freud - You ought to be shrink!

Security and Sustainable living will drive rent growth everything needs to be rebuilt and as is t is it will have lower reoccurring costs so instead of growth in demand like this last recovery the overall economy will shrink per capita housing will not be as bid an expense as it is now.