Except when you don ' t <| sep |> I ' ll try to add a slightly different angle than the other explanations . Assets have varying degrees of liquidity . If an asset has very low liquidity , that means that if you are forced to sell it , you may have to accept a lot less money for it than you would under normal circumstances . Real estate is the classic example of a type of asset with really low liquidity . Selling a house is a slow , complicated process . And a truly interested buyer might not come along every day , so if you have to sell quickly , you likely will need to lower the price a lot to entice buyers who are less interested . Obviously , when times get tough , some people run out of money , lose their jobs , etc . , and they wind up having to sell things . Not just houses or other real estate , of course . When this happens , rich people may have less money than they did when times were good , but they still have enough money available to pounce on all the bargains around them . So they are able to pick up things for cheap not only because prices may be lower in an downturn but also because they can buy for even cheaper by being there at the moment when someone is forced to sell below even the reduced market value . Then of course as things recover , the stuff that they bought at a bargain becomes valuable again .