The population did not get together and form some conspiracy to stop buying houses. The people that had the money and were willing to spend it at the price points at that time had already bought their houses. Houses aren't something you buy a new one every month just because. Construction companies should have seen the writing on the wall and slowed down production instead of blindly continuing to build even though they were already starting to have a hard time selling the houses they had already built. It doesn't take a genius to figure out if you are building 100,000 new homes and apartments every year in an area that is only growing by 20,000-50,000 people per year you are going to run out of buyers sooner or later. That is what happened. No back ally conspiracies just simple supply and demand.