Even during the worst downturn in 2008, while home prices plummeted , rents stayed about the same and eventually rose so I was able to hold onto that property without issues. 

And immediately the values in my area and the rest of the United stated plummeted, this is all rhetorical.

I am not stating that out of state is not a fine route for some people or that I have had a lot of out of state properties (We have had two - One Alabama Shores duplex that was hit by multiple hurricanes and had property tax go up faster by far than the rents only to have values plummet after the hurricanes and one Alabama SFR that is beautiful on a lake). 

Property values plummeted, sub-prime mortgage rates skyrocketed, and many investors, particularly those who probably weren’t prepared to be investors in the first place, lost their properties.Any mortgage has inherent risk.

Once a condo becomes nonwarrantable, the prices on the asset plummet since your potential buyers are limited to all cash purchases. 

Thus it's like only making the minimum amount on your credit card statement and that results in you owing more then you borrowed.When you combine a ballooning loan balance through negative amoritization and house values plummeting that accelerates the negative equity in the property.Here's an article about option arm loans in January from CNBC with some good statistics on the next wave of foreclosures.http://www.cnbc.com/id/34729005Important Notes From Article:-From 2004 to 2005 1.3 Million borrowers took out $389 Billion worth of Option Arm Loans alone.

So not only did the top tax rate go up again to 88% but the threshold plummeted from $5 million to just 200,000!

However, when prices plummet, you are also at the mercy of comps too.  

Consider these numbers:In 2006, we had roughly:24,000 homes on market at any given time19,000 new homes being built19,000 net migration into DenverIn 2016, those numbers were:4,500 homes on market at any given time9,000 new homes being built38,000 net migration into DenverSupply has plummeted and demand has increased.

Temps plummeted to near zero for solid week or so and then we started getting snow.