Columnist predicts real estate "freeze"

Some interesting quotes from a March 12, 2007 Bill Fleckenstein article on MSN.com:

"This credit collapse is an unequivocally important event. Because, as I've been writing, the ability of anybody with a pulse to get a loan for any amount is what drove the real estate market, and the real estate market is what drove the economy. Sometime in the next three to six months, the real-estate market will basically just freeze up. Of course, inventories are going to explode and prices will eventually drop rather dramatically as a vicious cycle feeds on itself."

"Sadly, it doesn't take a large imagination to conjure up how underwater many people will be, and how difficult it will be to sell houses -- or purchase them, for that matter -- as lending standards change. Thus, I believe the ingredients for the 'next time down' are now at hand."