You can see them sprouting up all over like toadstools, these FOR SALE and FOR RENT signs. What happened? Take a look at this graph and you can easily determine there was a fantasy land growth Housing Bubble of real estate ‘value’ from about 2000- 2006, otherwise known as The Bush Era minus the last 2 years. The triumphalism is now gone. Bulletin From the Hindenburg- A Housing Crash Update
Why were prices going up anyway when it was mainly junk that was being built, since there is no real quality in the housing built over the last couple of decades and most of it is now solidly and rapidly becoming slum? In fact the item that is most missing from these new neighborhoods is neighborhood.
The housing market was actually overly invested in creating new housing and allowed the old housing to slop into increased disrepair. How many extra ‘habitations’ are there now out actually? Count the signs… There’s just simply not enough money to buy and rent all this overpriced junk. Meanwhile the homeless population will begun to shoot upward!
They want to blame it on the victims and not the perps… For an alternative view to that see the trailer for the movie… American Casino … http://www.americancasinothemovie.com/
This problem started with the Clinton era “community reinvestment act” where banks were all but forced to lend to people who could not afford to pay the loans back. Bush is a buffoon, but his only contribution to this particular debacle was supporting the bailout. (not that he hasn’t had a major hand in many other debacles 🙂 )