Throughout the 90 's and the turn of the century, the housing market has stood as an economic pillar, supporting growth and prosperity and assisting generations in upward momentum from the lower to middle class. This is why the 2008 housing market crash had such a debilitating effect on the economy. The crash left millions facing foreclosure and millions more underwater. The burst of the housing bubble even effected international markets, causing havoc in other countries. These misguided policies were the main source of the financial turbulence that flattened the U.S. economy.
Predatory lending and meticulously intricate loan pooling helped cause the destruction of this market. Essentially, financial institutions were handing out mortgages to people that were often struggling to repay them, and these Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS 's) were often resold to investors that were unaware of the systemic risk they had purchased. These high-risk loans were gathered together and sold as low-risk securities due to a lack of diversity in the overall portfolio. As these toxic MBS 's were resold into the marketplace, they were separated and reorganized, making it extremely difficult to track the actual value of the derivatives of the bonds.
In order to understand this better, consider 10 containers full of jellybeans, with each container a different color. The beans are all combined, shaken up, and poured back into the jars. Then they are all combined again, cut in half, shaken up,
During the early 2000 's, the United States housing market experienced growth at an unprecedented rate, leading to historical highs in home ownership. This surge in home buying was the result of multiple illusory financial circumstances which reduced the apparent risk of both lending and receiving loans. However, in 2007, when the upward trend in home values could no longer continue and began to reverse itself, homeowners found themselves owing more than the value of their properties, a trend which lent itself to increased defaults and foreclosures, further reducing the value of homes in a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle. The 2008 crash of the near-$7-billion housing industry dragged down the entire U.S. economy, and by extension, the global economy, with it, therefore having a large part in triggering the global recession of 2008-2012.
The Great Recession of 2007-2009 was one of the most economically disastrous events in American history. The housing market took a significant downturn during this period. People were not cautious when it came to their money and loans. Larger loans were given out to people, even to those with bad credit and low incomes. These large loans caused many homes to go through foreclosure since people were unable to pay off their mortgage debts. These debts were created by banks increasing the interest rates on the loans significantly in a short period. In 2008, foreclosures were up by eighty-two percent. This increase is significant because the previous percentage of foreclosures was at fifty-one percent from 2007. Unemployment skyrocketed, and people
The bursting of the housing bubble, known more colloquially as the 2008 mortgage crisis, was preceded by a series of ill-fated circumstances that culminated in what has been considered to be the worst financial downfall since the Great Depression. After experiencing a near-unprecedented increase in housing prices from January 2002 until mid-2006, a phenomenon that was steadily fed by unregulated mortgage practices, the market steadily declined and the prior housing boom subsided as well. When housing prices dropped to about 25 percent below the peak level achieved in 2006 toward the close of 2008, liquidity and capital disappeared from the market.
During 1997-2006, house prices rose 85 percent. This led to an irresponsible consumer spending spree. Millions of people bought a house that they could not afford. Government regulatory agencies and mortgage lenders became less strict with credit restrictions so that people could buy homes without making any down payment. In 2007, however, the home values and sales began to decline. Due to the loss of trillions of dollars in home value, a record number of borrowers defaulted on their mortgage payments. America was put into a recession in 2008 because of the contraction of corporate spending and consumer purchased. The prices of consumer goods spiked, while employment declined. On October 3, 2008, former President Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program; however, the bill did not restore the economy as a whole. By June 2009, America's economic recovery was at its weakest since the end of the Second World War. I chose this event in history because it had a major effect on America’s economy and changed the course of history. Historians need to study the Great Recession because America should learn from their mistakes. The Great Recession was due to different factors; however, if the regulations on credit restrictions were not tampered with, then the severity of the recession could have been
Recently, the U.S. and world economy experienced a global economic recession in 2008 that was considered by some to be the worst economic crisis to plague the U.S., and ultimately the rest of the world, since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This global economic recession is popularly thought to be a result of the housing bubble crash in the U.S. as a result of risky
History helped to recognize the parallels between these eras and learn from them. The crisis of 2008 was not nearly as bad as the Great Depression, but like the Depression consumers lost trust in the market and were afraid to invest in the economy. The Housing Crash catastrophe, like the Great Depression contributed to the failure of banking institutions and led to high unemployment rates. Unlike the Great Depression, the crisis of 2008 was supported by more than a dozen economic stimulus packages provided by the federal government to jumpstart the economy. The federal government stepped in to bailout the banking institutions to avoid another Great Depression. It is important to look back on the history of these two national devastations and learn from their mistakes so we can be better prepared for future economic downfalls in the
Macroeconomics is an excellent tool for the analysis of the housing industry as something like a capital good, as a home is considered to be, cannot easily be studied in a short-term platform. Real estate is a good that costs several times more than an average persons annual income, in the United States that number is typically 7 times as much, and in the United Kingdom that number is 14 times as much. Several factors of both supply and demand directly impact the housing market on a macroeconomic scale. (Business Economics, 1)
The uncertainty of the financial industry and the nightmare of the housing bubble caused significant damage to the health of the economy. Businesses were unable to get loans, and employees were laid off. State governments suffered due to the high volume of debt and rising rates in unemployment forcing them to make major cuts to their budgets. All of this had a remarkable impact on the global economic climate as well that kept spreading, and many compared this recession to the Great
When markets turn south, investors again and again become shocked and baffled. The concern with this is that these market collapses happen sporadically and they are as old as the markets themselves. The legitimacy concerning these so called crashes is they are all first entrenched in success. “Preceding the 2007 credit market crash was the dynamism of the U.S. housing market, including a period of unprecedented home price appreciation” (Forbes, market crash). A major problem that caused the United States’ housing market to crash is because home prices rose faster than the population did. In exhibit 1
The following essay will thoroughly examine the severe economic downturn of 2008, formerly known as the housing bubble collapse. We will mainly focus our discussion on the effects the financial crisis had on Canada and the U.S and examine why both countries were affected differently. Although the collapse of the housing bubble is the most identifiable cause, it is extremely difficult to pinpoint one specific defining moment or event triggering the global financial collapse. There are many factors involved, due to the complex nature of the financial systems across the world, and this paper will delve in the key contributing variables that led to this financial crises.
The Big Short is a movie that discusses the housing market crash in 2008. As you may know, the banks, the mortgage brokers, and the consumers were all affected by this collapse. On each level of the system, there were things that went wrong and that could have been changed that could have prevented the failure of the housing market.
When researching past economic recoveries, the housing market is the one to drive the economy out of recession. That being said, this economic recession hasn’t had much of an impact until recently. America’s housing boom had a tremendous influence on the economy for its low prices and flow of new home construction.
The new lackadaisical lending requirements and low interest rates drove housing prices higher, which only made the mortgage backed securities and CDOs seem like an even better investment. Now consider the housing market which had become a housing bubble, which had now burst, and now people could not pay for their incredibly expensive houses or keep up with their ballooning mortgage payments. Borrowers started defaulting, which put more houses back on the market for sale. But there were not any buyers. Supply was up, demand was down, and home prices started collapsing. As prices fell, some borrowers suddenly had a mortgage for way more than their home was currently worth and some stopped paying. That led to more defaults, pushing prices down further. As this was happening, the big financial institutions stopped buying sub-prime mortgages and sub-prime lenders were getting stuck with bad loans. By 2007, some big lenders had declared bankruptcy. The problems spread to the big investors, who had poured money into the mortgage backed securities and CDOs. They started losing money on their investments. All these of these financial instruments resulted in an incredibly complicated web of assets, liabilities, and risks. So that when things went bad, they went bad for the entire financial system. Some major financial players declared bankruptcy and others were forced into mergers, or needed
Interest rates have a major economic impact on the real estate market. Interest rates directly affect property sales. Residential property realizes the greatest affect as interest rates have a considerable influence on a homebuyer’s capability to purchase a new property. The customer is affected when there are significant increases or decreases in interest rates. Declining interest rates lower the costs of obtaining a mortgage; this in turn creates higher demand for homes, and pushes home prices up. Conversely, high interest rates increase the costs to obtain a mortgage; these increases lower the demand for homes, which creates a decline in home prices. (Stammers, 2016)
The housing market in the United States became a nightmare for many people who had taken out loans found and they were not able to pay their mortgage repayments. When the value of homes decreased, the borrowers realized themselves with negative capital. The negative movement of housing sector did effect the United States economy. Individual house owners and investors could not react to the situation and their properties lost value. Rates of mortgages increased extremely high that’s why mortgages no longer became affordable for many people, and thousands of mortgages defaulted. Many banks and investment organizations start have