Good points! I might add what I saw on the community level in 2006 were properties selling that were getting appraisals at levels that couldn't be justified. So there was a lot of iffy situations to go around. A Countrywide story, the payday lender equivalent of home mortgages. This is from the old Kansas City Missouri working class neighborhood I used to live in. BTW when I talk real estate to east or west coast people I feel like I'm describing the third world. They lent $100,000 to a man I wouldn't have loaned $100 on a house that a couple of years before wouldn't have sold for $50,000. But the kicker, was when he got behind in his payments they started charging him 12% so there was no way he could catch up. So he stripped the house of anything sellable (copper ect) and walked away. And the problem was he wasn't the only one It was all through our neighborhood.