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There is no housing shortage and don’t expect a phantom shortage to prevent a bubble from being created.

I remember a realtor telling me some time ago that I should buy ocean front property because that was limited in supply and the price could only go up.
The same kind of thinking has led many to conclude that, since California "needs" more housing, the current run-up in prices is justified by supply and demand, and there is no bubble here. For example, the Los Angeles Times, Monday, May 27, 2002, reported:

"With limited inventory and tightly controlled lending for new projects, the industry runs 'no risk of collapse' even if the economy stumbles, Economy.com analyst Steven Cochrane wrote in a recent report on the state."

Both these thoughts reflect a lack of understanding of how asset prices get determined. They reveal indifference to the behavior of rents, and/or they show a lack of understanding of the connection between the rents and the asset prices. This is the same error that Wall Street analysts made during the Internet Rush when they imagined that the New Economy changed the rules and created a fundamental disconnect between corporate earnings and stock prices. We know differently now. The markets are rudely reminding us that when we buy a stock (an asset), we are buying an earnings stream. The price we pay for the stock should reflect current corporate earnings and reasonable expectations about what the future of earnings might be. A bubble is created when these get disconnected.

Survivor Investing can temporarily disconnect earnings and valuations.

It is easy to lose track of the connection between earnings and valuations for stocks. Indeed, many investors play Survivor Investing: Outwit, Outlast, Outplay. To them, the value of the stock is what someone else will pay for it. It's the greater fool and the last man in who loses this game. Survivor investing is a zero-sum game, which can transfer a massive amount of wealth from losers to winners.

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* Edward E. Leamer,
Director, UCLA Anderson Forecast.
Check the link for author's profile: http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/edward.leamer/pdf_files/cv.pdf