The common joke was "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us". ;-)On a more serious note, in answer to your thesis, This article just came out:"Roughly 43 million American households have opted to rent rather than buy their homes because of convenience, cost or both." https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/311/topics/59...

Stocks, real estate and investment prices climbed ever higher.The banking system was already experiencing crisis events in September 2019, with Federal Reserve injecting $412 Billion into banks, so banks can make it through Christmas/NY 2020 and then continued injecting money in 2020.Fed at first pretended this liquidity injection is not QE money printing, which was pushing stocks to new all time highs.In 2019, before the virus lockdown started, a market legend predicted the 2020 stock crash.

We can’t just pretend like everything is fine.

One of the best things (almost nobody does) is to spend a few hours and mystery shop your competition - pretend you are an interested aplicant and call, ask questions, see if they do open house type showings.

I am not going to pretend that everything is swell but here are the reasons I don't think this will be a bloodbath like 2008.1. 42.1% of all homes in the US are owned outright.2. 58.7% of all homes in the US have 60% equity.   3.

However, pretend a friend of yours told you this story. 

Take the time to pretend you are a renter looking for a place to live in your market. 

Call a couple of management companies in your area and pretend you're looking for something similar.

Heck, you could rent to a non-disabled person who burns the place down after smoking pot against the rules in your unit LOL.Just pretend she can see and treat her like that.  

Yeah, I had one broker actually call and pretend that I'd agreed to bring an "executor's deed" to my hearing for my mother's probate (they get the court filings, which are public), and say that I need to be sure to have it in hand at the hearing, and some other garbage basically presenting herself as a legal expert - I reported her to the state bar as someone practicing law without a license and reported her to the state realtor's board, too.There are serious consequences for people using predatory techniques to prey on people who are grieving or aren't savvy about real estate deals or who are uneducated or seniors, etc.