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There were plenty of warning signs in 2008: yield curve, declining housing starts, etc. So it was not a surprise. The surprise was specifically which day every

• chucksmash 7y ago
  In 2007 I had a summer job as a gopher/assistant for a residential real estate appraiser. I remember thinking being an appraiser was an amazing gig when I started the summer and was entertaining the idea of staying on during the school year as a practicum rather than going back immediately. We were doing two houses a day, every day. Turning away work. Some appraisers were grinding, doing three a day even (figure about four hours each if you're working fast but actually doing the work). Baseline fee for a residential appraisal then was $300 for houses worth less than $1 million. The opportunity to earn $900/day is a heady notion for a broke college student, especially given you just had to measure people's houses, take pictures, look up comps, and file some paperwork. By the time I went back to school, we couldn't rely on even one house on a given day. I didn't have any insight about the overall situation (i.e. there were plenty of reasonable explanations, maybe the lender found someone willing to give them more favorable appraisals, etc), but the effect was pronounced.