A great article on Yahoo today about a subdivision just outside of Phoenix and how it's getting clobbered with foreclosures...

Boom, bust in area beset by foreclosures - Yahoo! News

Denny Hatch also had a wonderful article on the growing mortgage/foreclosure problem back in the end of August:
Peter Lynch’s Almighty Crayon : Denny Hatch : Business Common Sense

Quite frankly the whole thing amazes me to some extent but to another it doesn't.

Yeah, lenders really did a wonderful marketing job at selling these adjustable rate mortgages. I'm mean just terrific! Consumers bought these hook, line and sinker all over the U.S.-- Miami, Phoenix, LA, San Francisco

Do the lenders deserve a certain amount of blame? Yeah they probably do but to me it all comes down to the folks that signed up for these things. Obviously from reading the articles it's clear that many thought the housing marketing would never stop increasing 10% or more per year. But little did they realize that much of the housing boom was do to speculators and other folks that thought the same thing. Everyone was just buying, buying, buying without ever giving a thought that perhaps, just perhaps housing prices may not go up for a long enough period to throw a monkey in the wrench.

And then you have those funky mortgages where people just paid interest for a couple years before that big old principal payment was due. From outward appearances a lot of these folks buying those $250,000 to $500,000 homes weren't folks making $100,000+ a year either. But just regular folks trying to carve out a piece of the "American Dream" AND make a few bucks on the side.

I guess the urge to "Get rich quick" (and easy) is still as strong today as it ever has been-- to the point that many would risk their family's future.

Just like the article says it use to be your home was your "rock" in life. I could never, ever fathom taking the financial risk that many folks have in these once hot housing markets. I'm not bothered in the least bit that the real estate around here only has increased a point or two per year over the last couple decades. You can still get a decent house for less than $100,000.

That's why I don't buy the argument that these people just wanted to "buy a house." If that were the case they could have found far more affordable housing elsewhere in the U.S.

It's a fascinating news story that represents many of the "get rich quick" boom and bust cycles that have radiated throughout our history-- just look at the whole high-tech stock thing of the late 90's. Or the Californian gold rush or the oil boom in western Pennsylvania in the 1870's & 1880's. You see a lot of the same mindsets throughout all those periods-- the most deadly being that no one thought it could ever end.