The thing is that a lot of people buying houses right now can afford them. The income divide is growing and the gulf between the economic haves and have-nots is

The thing is that a lot of people buying houses right now can afford them. The income divide is growing and the gulf between the economic haves and have-nots is widening. The supply of housing, particularly in desirable areas, is still constrained to the point that there are more qualified buyers than not. And the have-nots are locked out of the market entirely. Lending standards are significantly higher than leading up to 2008. Are they still too loose? Debatable. But we are not seeing the flagrant disregard of DTI, abuse of ARMs, and flagrant dereliction of lender due diligence like in the years leading up to 2008. Whatever the next crisis or crash is will look different and have different causes than the last. IMO, that ownership is out of reach for an increasingly large portion of the population will be part of the breaking point, not a death spiral of defaults and securitized junk loans that shouldn't have been issued in the first place.