I'll buy a house, if you will: real estate's pack mentality

What does it take to get buyers back into the real estate market? A stampede, evidently.

Just as techies believe they have to own a smartphone to be considered culturally in step, home buyers and sellers hold out or take the realty plunge en masse as well. Either way, group-think is at the core of the behavior.

Behavioral economists -- experts who study what consumers do and follow the economic impact of group behavior -- say that the pressure to conform that, for example, high school students feel -- remember ubiquitous love beads in the '60s and platform shoes in the '70s? -- also takes hold among those who deal in real estate.