I actually spoke with my homebuilder about leverage. His company took out a loan to purchase the (now my) property with a downpayment of I think 10% of the und

I actually spoke with my homebuilder about leverage. His company took out a loan to purchase the (now my) property with a downpayment of I think 10% of the undeveloped value. It was common for him to do that, and interest payments could drain his profit margin if it took too long to sell a new home. So at least he was levered 10x. But even if all builders did that, it would still carry less risk than the too-big-to-fail banks by virtue of being distributed across many small independent organizations. No single collapse eould trigger a cascade.