You were paying attention. The note holders got bailed out.
It wasn’t a “liability to begin with,” silly. Quite the contrary...it was like buying stock (an asset, correct?) high and betting it would keep going up. The stock could crash (as in right now)...it was still an asset. People loaned on the expectation that real estate “asset value” would keep increasing. It didn’t.
Right now, my stocks are still an asset, but losing value. And it’s true I don’t have specific liability, such as a margin loan, against these assets.
My real estate assets, on the other hand, against which I do have some “liabilities” (e.g., mortgages) are still maintaining their “asset value” much better than my stocks are.
So at this moment, real estate is a far more valuable asset than stock.