What Investment Property Has Ever Dropped 30 Percent In Value In Three Days?

A question:

What investment property has ever dropped 30 percent in value in the first three days of the week?

I can only think of one. The World Trade Center towers -- but then that probably isn't fair since terrorists slammed two jet aircraft into them in 2001, murdering thousands of people.

Okay, I didn't really mean to shake you up that way, but my point is this. Barring some unforeseen, rare, virtually impossible event, real estate does not suffer precipitous drops in value. They don't even go down 30 percent in a week, let alone a month.

So the news today that the value of CitiGroup dropped 30 percent in three days-- after several weeks and months of decline begs the following query.

Why would anyone want to be investing in this questionable paper when there are perfectly good investment properties out there -- apartments, offices and the like -- that throw off cash every month?

Anyone?

(Note: Citigroup was trading at $25.42 at close on April 30 of this year. Today, it plunged to below five dollars a share. For more on the story, click here.)