Housing market pre bubble

[Shanequa J.]

What was the housing market like before the bubble? I've been going to RE meetings and all you hear is "Houston is hot. There's only 2.6 months of inventory; home prices rose 10% for 2 straight years". I didn't follow RE at all back in the day so I don't have anything to compare the market to. I started watching the flip shows after everything went downhill. Those shows made it seem like nothing could go wrong and that's how it feels out here.

[Jon Klaus]

A number of markets have skewed towards more demand than supply. There are different combinations of reasons for this, but I believe the biggest is pent up demand after several weak years. Many people either couldn't buy or didn't have the confidence. Now they are in the market. The economy has been slowly improving and the equity markets have really rebounded. I expect a strong spring/summer.

What's different now from 10 years ago? The mortgage market. Do you remember 560 FICOs buying houses? Stated income loans? Liar loans? $50k incomes buying $450k houses? Negative amortizations? 110% financing? Predatory owner financing? Predatory bank financing?

Yes, money is cheap now, but you see far less of all the above that we had during the bubble. I do not think we are in a bubble. Yes, there will be corrections, but no national (or Houston) bubble.