Dr. Housing Bubble Celebrates Monumental 100th Post! Top 10 Housing Articles.

I’m in a celebratory mood. Today marks our 100^th post on Dr. Housing Bubble! While reviewing the archives of previous posts, it turns out that I’ve written over 300 pages worth of housing bubble information since October of 2006. Easily enough to fill a book. We’ve also covered 25 Real Homes of Genius exposing the extraordinary housing bubble in Southern California.

Two years ago it was difficult to find solid mainstream academic articles covering the housing bubble. Now, it is a challenge parsing so much information into a succinct article. It is comparable to drinking water out of a fire hydrant. Alternatively a better comparison would be, “like being part of the audit team at New Century Financial.” While I gather more information for another article, I wanted to leave you with the Top 10 articles on Dr. Housing Bubble over the past year. This should be a great primer for anyone new to the site or for those veterans that would like to play armchair quarterback and realize that we saw this coming long ago.

#10 - Manias, Panics, and Crashes: 2007 First Quarter All-Stars – Foreclosures, Subprime, and Politics. Five Characteristics of a Housing Bubble.

Examining five stages of an asset bubble. Speculation, Credit Expansion, Financial Distress at Peak, Crisis, and finally Crash and Panic.

#9 - Lying Dirty Scoundrels of Housing: 3 Additional Factors to the Housing Explosion: Money Supply, Consumer Inflation, and Celebrities?

Where do you think the money for this housing bubble came from? This article takes a look at the money supply and how consumer inflation is vastly understated. Oh, and we also look at Trump’s the Apprentice for good measure.

#8 - Housing Premonition: When You Knew it in Your Gut That Housing is Overpriced.

When your gut says no but your mortgage broker says yes! Understanding the nature of snap judgments and how this affects market psychology toward housing. Wall Street owned the subprime market and we saw how quickly things turned sour for this market niche once Wall Street lost the appetite for high risk loans.

#7 - Zillow is Off by a Small Amount. Try $250,000 off with Proof!

An oldie but goodie. A short article showing the difficulty Zillow has in determining accurate prices in overpriced markets with quickly changing inventory and lots of mortgage fraud. When this article posted in November, I was getting doubters saying that subprime would continue its strong momentum upward. Oh really?

#6 - $640 Billion in Sub-prime Loans Originated. $386 Billion in Alt-A Loans Originated. $1.026 Trillion in Loans at Risk? Priceless.

Leverage is king in this market. Amazing how a company worth $80 million at one point was able to have $8.4 billion in loans outstanding. This article looks at the quick fall of share prices that many subprime lenders encountered during the subprime debacle.

#5 - Why Did the Housing Phenomenon Spread? 3 Key Reasons for a Social Epidemic: Housing Connectors; Mavens; and Salespeople.

Housing spread like wildfire. Many people played into this game but 3 kinds of key people were paramount in accelerating the housing bubble. We have the housing connectors, mavens, and salespeople.

#4 - Yearly Income, $14,000. Purchase of House, $720,000. Have we All Lost our Minds???

I think the title says it all on this one. The much touted $14,000 a year farmer being able to purchase a $720,000 home. Read the article to find out if his income was able to support the monthly payment.

#3 - Real Homes of Genius: Special Edition, Lifestyles of the Poor and Notorious. 10 Southern California Homes that Prove a Gargantuan Housing Bubble.

The ultimate Real Homes of Genius article. Not only do we look at one overpriced home, but we examine 10 homes in 5 counties! This bubble is equal opportunity across all of Southern California. At least it doesn’t discriminate right?

#2 - America’s Codependence on Housing: 30% of Job Growth Contributed by Real Estate. 5 Point Plan on how the Bubble Will Burst.

When 30% of your job growth is contributed by real estate since 2000, we got some massive issues. We also hear how diverse and stratified our economy is but we haven’t put this to the test with a declining housing market. Read the article for the 5 point plan of how this bubble will burst. So far it looks like we’re heading down this path.

#1 - The Housing Tipping Point. 3 Factors That Will Burst the Bubble: The Negative Wealth Effect, Negative Press, and Suffocating Debt Payments.

The article title says it all. Last year the housing market was on its last leg but the press was still cheer leading and David Lereah was still the NAR’s chief economist. So much has changed since 2006. What tipped the housing market into the doldrums? Well for one the press isn’t so housing friendly anymore.

And there you have it. The Top 10 articles based on your readership. As the housing bubble continues to deflate, more and more organic searches are hitting this website. It seems that Joe and Susie public are concerned about their mortgages resetting. When they try to contact their mortgage broker many times they are finding he/she/it is no longer employed with the same lending operation. Welcome to summer of 2007. I have so many articles and nuggets of information that I want to share with you. In the meantime, read up on these articles and you’ll have a solid understanding of the housing and credit bubble we are currently living in.

I also want to thank you for being a great community. What started out as a little tightly knit community is now a growing network of thousands of daily visitors. Here’s to another solid year of housing analysis!

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