Housing Crisis: Walking the streets of San Jose to keep the family home, page 1

Is this what the US is coming to?
The United States housing bubble is an economic bubble in many parts of the United States housing market including areas of California, Florida, Colorado, Michigan, the Northeast Corridor, and the Southwest markets. On a national level, housing prices peaked in early 2005, began declining in 2006 and may not yet have hit bottom. Increased foreclosure rates in 2006–2007 by U.S. homeowners led to a crisis in August 2008 for the subprime, Alt-A, Collateralized debt obligation (CDO), mortgage, credit, hedge fund, and foreign bank markets.[1] In October 2007 the U.S. Treasury Secretary called the bursting housing bubble "the most significant risk to our economy."[2]

Housing bubbles may occur in local or global real estate markets. They are typically characterized, in their late stages, by rapid increases in the valuations of real property until unsustainable levels are reached relative to incomes, price-to-rent ratios, and other economic indicators of affordability. This may be followed by decreases in home prices that can result in many owners holding negative equity—a mortgage debt higher than the value of the property. The underlying causes of the housing bubble are complex; factors include historically-low interest rates, lax lending standards, and a speculative fever.[1][3][4][5][6] This bubble may be related to the stock market or dot-com bubble of the 1990s.[7][8][9][10][11] This bubble is roughly coincident with real estate bubbles in the United Kingdom, Spain and even South Korea.[

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