Roy Wenzlick is possibly the greatest housing market forecaster of all time.
He did an immense amount of research on the real estate cycle and is renowned for his forecasting abilities.
However, unlike Homer Hoyt (who is credited for ‘discovering’ the 18-year boom/bust pattern as it applied to land in his 1933 book One hundred years of land values in Chicago), Wenzlick doesn’t get a mention on Wikipedia.
In fact, it’s incredibly difficult to find Wenzlick’s publications — or for that matter, any information about his life and work online.
Still, knowledge of Wenzlick is important for students of the cycle.
Wenzlick wasn’t the only towering yet somewhat forgotten figure to research the cycle as it applied to US real estate.
Another that flies under the radar is Clarence Long, also referred to as Doc Long.
Long was a US economist and politician.
He did his Masters and PhD in economics at Princeton University in the mid-1930s. His doctoral dissertation was titled ‘Long cycles in the building industry business, public, and residential building in United States cities, 1856–1935’.
The ‘long cycle’ he referred to, of course, is the 18-year real estate cycle.