Stock market is probably least safe place for investment right now. Why do you think real estate has gone crazy in the past 5 years? Lots of people that I know who manage their money are almost entirely in cash and many of them avoided the carnage last week.
Real estate and stock market performance are actually very co-related but with some delay. If one gets in downturn, other would follow sooner or later. The difference is that real estate can absorb more shocks and it requires consistent long term downturn in stocks before real estate reacts. Typically real estate is not a favorable way to invest money except when you are very long term. It has huge liquidity problem and it usually has lower returns due to maintenance, property taxes, rental churn, natural disasters and property depreciation costs due to aging. For example, if you had invested in real estate in 2007 you would not have broke even until late 2014 (that's 7 years of wait to get 0% profit). There are obviously exceptions, usually in urban area where no new constructions will occur. Also if you are living in the property then you can subtract rental cost that would put you ahead in ~20 year cycle. But if you are investing heavily in real estate as investment you are gambling in even bigger casino than stock market.
I would fully expect real estate to go down in drain within next 6 months if stock market doesn't improve. This might cause all the private funds that had been buying up tons of properties to take a flight. This would accelerate the downturn in real estate more severely. Lot of people might get badly burned by this but this time it would be mostly private investors as opposed to people who got subprime.
