The real estate market goes through a cycle of what most professionals agree to be four stages. The entire cycle moves as periods of boom and also periods of decline. Understanding the cycle and the progression of each stage can give you a mental model that can help you know where the market is at any time.
Real Estate is much more “Regional” as Calgary has shown. Calgary enjoyed the huge oil boom and then bust which exaggerated the cycle effects. As you know, the ending of the cycle is really a process. Again, if you look at the FRED data, the US bottomed in the 2010 to 2011, (even to 2012) timeframe and started the current cycle.
Similar to the broader economy, commercial real estate is a cyclical market. There are four phases to the real estate cycle: The four phases move in a continuous wave pattern that looks like this: Image by Glenn R. Miller, PhD. Depicted above is a single cycle.