With the real estate market experiencing surging prices, scant inventories, and a backlog of new home construction, many consumers are wondering if what’s gone up must come back down — in other words, are we headed for another housing market crash? Let’s take a closer look.
Memories of the Great Recession Are Still Fresh
Few people foresaw the housing market crash 15 years ago that ignited a worldwide recession. Fueled by low interest rates, loose mortgage lending standards, and the nation’s unshakeable faith in homeownership, home values rose at record rates year after year. When the housing bubble burst, some nine million families lost their homes to foreclosure or short sale between 2006 and 2014. Housing values plunged 30% or more, homeowners lost a collective $7 trillion, and it took nearly a decade for most markets to recover. Even today, several local real estate markets have not fully recovered.
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With the robust market activity we’ve seen lately, are we in for a repeat housing market crash? The short answer is “not likely.” Today’s mini-boom cannot be sustained, but a crash as serious as the last one is highly unlikely because of a few determining factors:
Factor #1: Higher Lending Standards
Loose mortgage lending practices ultimately brought down some of the nation’s largest banks and mortgage companies. The fallout forced Congress and federal regulators to make…