excellent article : aussie subprime time bomb, page-2

No, it isn't. Although, the later you do the more likely the price you can realize from the sale be much less.

There will still be many naive people buying into the falls thinking they just pick up a bargain. Much like those guys who bought shares when the ASX fell from 6800 to 6300, then to 5800, then 5400, then 4700, then 4100, then 3800 and ultimately it bottomed at 3100. Many falling knives will chop off the limbs of those trying to catch them.

The timing of an early listing is crucial, the longer you wait, the more listings you will be competing with as panic sets in (just as the buyers also shrink in numbers). This demand-supply swing can be extremely vicious leaving someone who is in denial about falling prices to hold on in defiance.

After a couple of months later, they will have lost even more, denial and defiance lead to anger, some will embrace the blind hope that prices will bounce back.

Upon reaching the point of capitulation, when one decides to sell, the prices already down 30% or more (at the time when more bad news hit the media and more buyers start to list, with more buyers pulling back in expectation of further falls).

That's the mechanics of a housing crash where ever you go.

Oh Yeah, by that time, any buyers will find it next to impossible to get a mortgage loan that isn't prohibitively expensive and with LVR as tight as a drum.