“We’ve never been here before,” said Bass, founder of hedge fund Hayman Capital, in an interview Wednesday on CNBC'S “Squawk on the Street.” “It has been the largest peacetime accumulation of debt in history.”

And that makes investment decisions extremely difficult, Bass said.

After shortingsubprime residential mortgage-backed securitiesbefore the the housing bust, Bass now has about half his portfolio in subprime and partly subprime mortgage bonds.

While Bass isn’t expecting further declines in home prices, a rebound doesn’t appear likely until the shadow housing inventory is flushed out, he said. (Read More: States with the Healthiest Housing Markets.)

With ongoing uncertainty about the global debt situation, the fund manager said his “goal is not to lose money.”

Bass suggests owning productive assets—apartment buildings, oil wells, gas wells—“anything that has a real asset that’s productive.”