Artificially easy credit by banks, thanks to Obama's "Make Housing Affordable." A policy that allowed Fanny Mae and Freddy Mack to underwrite bad loans. This fueled the housing price run-ups (inflation) and allowed tremendous refinancing or speculators to buy cheap, substandard homes, slap some paint on them, and resell to unqualified buysers, at a huge profit. Built a house of cards, and the banks needed a government bailout to keep from going insolvent. It slowly started prior to the Dot.com bubble burst in 1999. The maddening sell-off started in late 2007 with warnings by Alan Greenspan about the overheated economy. East Coast, West Coast, Texas, first in 2008, the rest of us bleeding into 2009. Housing is so unaffordable now. Imagine if the economy does pick up, in spite of all the federal employee layoffs! Widens the haves and have nots.